The Next Doctor
by devilishlysas
Summary: The hour has struck and it's Twelve's turn to take the TARDIS out for a spin. This new face is struggling to be the man he once was, luckily Clara is on hand and there's an army of old faces to help guide him back to the man we know and love. (Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or it's Characters, just borrowing them). Rated M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**THE NEXT DOCTOR**

Clara blinked trying not to panic, so the Doctor had a new face and apparently didn't remember how to operate the one constant in his life... and to be honest the less said about him taking umbrage with his kidneys the better. But he was staring at her with those mad slate blue eyes from beneath those insane eyebrows expectantly, he was never expectant, maybe hopeful of humans but expectant was definitely new. The tears and the grief were still fresh on her face for his last self, for 'her' Doctor, but she had to blink them away and bury it for now, because like he said, they were crashing if they lived then she'd mourn him.

Clara stepped forwards, she had lifetimes of memories, some of them were even Timelord ones if she concentrated she could get glimpses, added to that the little trip into the vortex to the pocket Universe that the TARDIS herself had taught her to navigate in a bid to rescue their man; or the lessons the Doctor had give her even if it was only in 'basic' mode, she could do this... why the hell not? If nothing else she could stabilise it, she knew where the blue boringers were, but pushing away the last Doctor was harder when she was actively remembering him telling her in disgust what they did, apparently anything with the word stabiliser in it was an affront to him, or 'had' been.

The levers moved easily in her hands as she tried to correct the mad spin and prevent them crashing, for the most part the TARDIS was actually cooperating with her; she'd even go so far to say as it was being 'helpful'. Clearly the idea of a memory-less Doctor crashing her on his first outing wasn't exactly the laugh a minute riot it sounded like it was going to be.

The bong of the TARDIS landing bought her breath out in a whoosh of relief; she turned to face the Doctor her smile triumphant, but his dark intense expression only inches from her face wiped the smile right off it and she felt a chill sweep through her, he looked smug.

"So." His smile was thin and without the laughter it used to incite, "You seem like a good lass to have in a crisis. Cool head, knows how to operate heavy machinery." He stepped closer and most deliberately sniffed her. "Oh yes this will do nicely. New Doctor and a new first face for this face to see, but I do think you should have kept the nose." His brash Scottish accent seemed to amuse him as he rolled his new tones with clear satisfaction, no doubt a lingering reminder of his Amelia.

Clara blinked instinctively touching her nose. "What's wrong with my nose, it's the same one I've always had."

He smiled ruefully, "He'd thought that nose was cute. Shame really, but that's life I suppose, people up and change the things you liked about them on you. Just. Like. That." His pronounced, slow words were accentuated by the harsh click of his fingers in front of her face as he stared hard, clearly making some sort of point that was currently eluding her still grief addled mind.

Clara got the distinct impression he was messing with her... just not in the fun childish way his predecessor would have done it, there was something far more pointed about his goading that slid just that bit deeper beneath your skin, right to where it hurt. "My nose is fine. You're the one who changed remember. You and your kidneys."

His head cocked sideways slightly as he examined her, the barest flicker of a smile tracing his lips as she tried to absorb his face, to see the man she knew in the new man before her. But it was so hard, his large childish movements that were as achingly familiar to her as her own were no strange, smooth, there was something almost reptilian about this version. Something none of the others had had, not even his 7th face, her least favourite if memory served her. But his face reflected his age this time, older, but somehow sprier, she got the impression he saw more.

"Can't say I care for the eyebrows this time round... Doctor." It actually pained her to use that title, to call him that, but this was the way of it, his way, the Timelord way. She should just be grateful a part of him was living on at all. It could just so easily have gone the other way, she could be standing there in the snow on Christmas cradling his truly dead, ancient form, waiting for the Dalek's to strike her down beside him.

The Doctor raised his hands and ran them swiftly over his face, smirking a little when he came to the aforementioned eyebrows. "Yes, something of a feature aren't they. Less of a chin, and for once the ears seem in proportion. Could have done worse. Although deep lines, some wear and tear," he bent, "the knees could be sprier, and I will have to do something about those kidneys." He held his hands out observing them. "Clever hands though. Always handy." He smirked at his own joke that fell flat on her as she tried to hold onto the idea that this... all of this was ok, it was a good thing, after all it just meant he was alive.

"A joke... is that who I am, a joker with clever hands and interesting kidneys." He raised those substantial eyebrows at her as if in question. "You didn't laugh though." He pointed out and Clara tried not to hear the accusation in it, more than anything she was finding it was impossible to bury the soul crushing despair the image of him stretching his hand out to her, bathed in light, before he was just gone, was having on her frame of mind.

"You used to be funny." She muttered. Apparently neither of them missed her use of the past tense.

His eyes narrowed. "Such a sad, curious girl with a nose that used to be cute."

Clara frowned staring hard at him. "Doctor. What's my name?" something leaden was sinking into the pit of her stomach as she grew more certain he wouldn't be able to answer.

He sighed. "Honestly dear girl, what on earth am I supposed to do with you if you don't even know your own name." He paused leaning in closer. "You used to know mine though, didn't you. The name they gave me at birth, did you give it to the Timelords, did you whisper it through the crack, is that why they gave me this new set of lives?"

Clara froze as he stalked around her, his hand slid onto her shoulder and his clever fingers gripped just that fraction too tightly. Of course he'd ask, of course he'd know she'd interfered. "You were going to die. What was I supposed to do, sit there and watch it happen, let the town you'd spent the last 600 years defending go up in Dalek smoke?"

The fingers bit down harder and she tried not to wince as he came to stand in front of her, he was shorter now, she could look him in the eye without standing on her tiptoes and giving herself neck ache. "Not the question I asked, and have you shrunk?" he paused leaning back as if to look at her again, muttering something under his breath that she couldn't quite catch.

"I told them you were the Doctor, that was the only name that should matter and that they should save you." Exasperation crept into her voice, "And no, of course I've not shrunk. I've not changed, it's you that's shorter... and angrier." She bit out, prising his fingers off her shoulder and massaging it with her own trying not to let the obvious discomfort show on her face as she realised he'd probably have left bruises.

"Hmm." He absorbed that. "Clever, angry hands." He gave them a glance and then let his eyes rest briefly on her shoulder as if he could see the damage they'd done.

"What's my name?" She insisted and he rolled his eyes.

"It doesn't matter." He strode around the console, nudging buttons and at least starting to look like he remembered something of what he was doing there. Clara tried not to flinch at his tone, or his words.

"Of course it matters." She tried not to let tears form, but she found herself blinking them away as she followed after him.

The Doctor had his eyes on the TARDIS console. "Yes well I suppose it matters to you." He turned giving her another once over, "Besides that was what 'he' called you. I'm not him, even though he's me." He rubbed his temples briefly and Clara felt a flash of concern, this regeneration had been difficult the other Doctor had said so, said it was taking longer. She lifted her hand hesitating as it hovered over his arm, she desperately wanted to comfort him and so herself, to find something of the previous him in this new one, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

"Then what will you call me?" she offered, knowing that she was giving him something, something new, something that was hers, hoping that whatever sort of man he was this time round he'd see that she was trying to be kind.

He raised his head and his hand shot out grasping her hovering one. She was surprised at the softness to it, she'd expected fingers capable of such strength would be rougher somehow. But he was delicate now as they traced the skin on her hand and down ghosting over her wrist until he could feel her pulse hammering away beneath. "You'll be _my_ Oswin." He promised and she felt her breath hitch at the intensity in his eyes, at the reflexive tightening of his fingers around her wrist as he used it to draw her in closer. So he had remembered something of her then.

"Oswin is a ghost." She whispered, horrified and oddly relieved that she wouldn't have to hear the words 'my Clara' uttered from this versions mouth.

"Aren't we all my dear?" he drew her in closer by that entrapped wrist and Clara dared not breath, not wanting to know if he'd still smell the same. Moments passed as they shared breath, his eyes seeming to stare straight into her very soul as she wondered just how much of his had survived intact.

"You should change." She broke eye contact, fixing them on a point at his chest instead, feeling his other hand come to rest lightly against her spine, a gentle brush that was at odds with the intensity she felt emanating from him. "The Victorian get up doesn't suit you." She indicated his clothing attempting to gently extract herself only to find that she'd inexplicably wound up closer, their chests almost touching as she finally lifted her eyes back to his.

"You my dear Oswin, I will definitely be keeping." His lips brushed the corner of her mouth as he placed a kiss there in a soft, possessive gesture that made her knees weaken a fraction and her breath tremble. Gone was the foppish child she'd so adored, in his place was this cold angry man who's grip was like steel, until he used it to brush her skin.

"Your trembling, don't tell me your actually afraid of little old me?" his breath ghosted over her ear causing a shiver to snake down her spine as she kept her eyes fixed on him, uncertain what he would do if she dared to close them.

"Terrified." She admitted, hating that he'd reduced her voice to a mere whisper, his splayed fingers against her back pressed and drew her closer until their chests collided and she could feel the solid staccato rhythm of his dual heart beat. Strong and steady. She lifted her hands, quite deliberately removing his as she stepped away from him. "And I haven't decided if I'll be keeping you yet anyway."

His face was inscrutable before he let out a soft chortle of amusement at her presumption, like it would be beyond a human to reject him. She prayed she wouldn't have to.

"You are quite right though, a dead man's clothes will never do." He muttered coldly the jibe clearly for her and she felt it solidly impact her heart which gave a painful twits and fresh tears blossomed. He didn't watch to see his barb land, merely turned away from her and giving her the distinct impression that she was being dismissed as he walked away, heading into the depths of the TARDIS.

Clara turned to watch the slow up and down of the TARDIS matrix, her hand went out almost instinctively to the energy she knew was coiled within. "I think we might be in trouble here old girl." She sighed dropping her head and watching a lever move all of its own accord, the parking break clicking into place indicating that they wouldn't be going anywhere for some time. The tingle of telepathic circuitry brushed her mind and urged her to follow the Doctor, the overwhelming sense of unease a twin to her own, but there was already a love there from the Blue Box for this man, whatever guise he was in and she felt it lash her soundly. The old cow's bark was about as bad as her bite because Clara stumbled back, her hand to her head, trying to shake the feeling that she'd been scolded like a child. This was the Doctor it said. Grow up and do what you promised you always would... save him.

Terrific. The the old cow was on his side as always, even if his side was definitely of a darker shade this time round, which meant she was definitely in trouble.

"I should have let him crash you." She muttered; giving the console a disgusted look as she stalked away her hands wrapped tightly around her midsection as if that would give her protection.

Problem was being stuck on a sentient ship that she'd landed on some alien world left her with few options, she might not want to follow the Doctor, but if the TARDIS got ugly, then she didn't particularly want to be stranded either. She shoved her hand into her pocket and retrieved the bow tie she'd rescued and stashed in there, she bought it to her lips and pressed a soft kiss to it, but no tears fell, now wasn't the time. 'Help me Chin Boy, because he really isn't you'.

Clara found the Doctor in the wardrobe, it was amazing how simple a feat it was to wander the corridors when it seemed the old cow wanted her to reach a destination. Rooms and corridors rearranging around her so that it was a few simple steps in any given direction.

The Doctor's disembodied voice floated over to her as she ascended the spiral staircase followed by a few choice words she hadn't heard him choose to use before as he cussed with gusto and remarked about his apparent colour blindedness in several previous regenerations, before emerging 'thankfully' fully dressed this time. He had twinned what looked like perfectly normal black suit trousers with a white dress shirt which he'd clearly left deliberately unbuttoned at the neck as he began buttoning up a deep dark red leather waistcoat.

"Be a good girl Oswin and find me a coat in that mess would you." Clara paused a fraction of a second wondering if it was worth arguing about and deciding picking what he wore wasn't necessarily a bad thing, she ducked beneath one of the rails about to submerge herself in the endless mass of fabrics when he caught her wrist holding her firm. "If you emerge with something that reminds me of Joseph and his technicolour monstrosity I won't be pleased." His eyes were hard, if he was joking she couldn't tell so she snatched back her wrist giving him a dark smile before ducking inside. "And nothing with a question mark on it for God's sake!" he bellowed.

Clara sighed, "Yes, yes. I got it." She couldn't decide if he was trying to include her in forging the identity of this new him; manipulate her into thinking that was what he was trying to do; or if he was just genuinely too bloody lazy to do it his damn self. Clara's fingers ran over the multitude of colours and materials on offer, wondering what exactly this Doctor would accept, how would he want to be seen?

Clara emerged with the offending item draped over her arm, he stood hand out expectantly as she tossed it to him. The Doctor lifted it up in front of him, turning it back and forth before shrugging it on and stalking over to the full length mirror. He stood his chest out, twisting lightly taking this new him in. The coat had a hint of old world military officer to it, tailored to his slighter frame and falling to his knee, a grey-black cord material with deep wide black lapels and cuffs and grandiose embroidered button holes that he chose not to do up. His eyes caught on her from within the glass.

"Thank you Owsin, this will do very nicely." Clara nodded, thinking he was probably right, he looked like someone who should be taken seriously at the very least.

"Dashing don't you think?" he quirked one of his large eyebrows at her and she couldn't help but give him a small smile.

The TARDIS gave a shudder and a bell echoed through the corridors ominously. The Doctor stared up at it. "Well you heard the Lady. Time to take a walk, stretch these new legs, she wants to perform her own regeneration and we wouldn't want to be inside for that."

"You remember about the TARDIS now?" she couldn't keep the relief from her voice at the thought.

"Never really forgot, just temporarily misplaced in the reshuffle, they came back almost immediately after I saw you take her in hand." Clara felt her mouth open in surprise and mild disgust, "Oh don't look so scandalised my dear, I doubt you have ever awoken in a new body with your memories somewhat scrambled wondering if that pretty young thing in front of you is friend or foe? I assure you, it is an unpleasant situation." He straightened his jacket and played with the overlarge cuffs, pulling his shirt sleeves out and popping his sonic into an inside pocket. "Besides allowing you to continue to pilot the ship once I had regained my senses was merely a wonderful opportunity to get the measure of you, see exactly what you would do with an incapacitated Timelord and an out of control TARDIS." He patted her head and the flinch she tried to hide was all too evident. "You did marvellously my dear."

"And if I hadn't?" she pressed, catching the flecks of silver in his blue eyes as he came to stand that little too close again and confirming her suspicions about his Machiavellian manipulations. She was cross, thoroughly so, but then she supposed if she put herself in his shoes, waking up new man, not quite the same thoughts, memories a bit scrambled, maybe she'd be cagey too.

"Oh I'd have done what I always do," his smile was thin, no teeth. "I'd have traded you in for a newer model." He wasn't joking, of that she was certain, it wouldn't have been the first time he'd abandoned her today either... even if today had taken about 600 years for him.

"Charming." Clara smiled back just as falsely biting out the word and refraining from saying anything else for now, his promises about keeping her at least seemed to make a little more sense to her now.

"I am aren't I?" he exclaimed, running a hand through his silver dusting of close cropped hair and giving himself a twirl in the mirror. "Maybe that's who I am this regeneration, an old charmer."

Clara smirked, "Lets add narcissistic and completely immune to sarcasm to that list." He stared back at her through the mirror, his smirk growing until it matched hers.

"Oh come now my dear. I'm sure there will be lots of things to find out about this new me, I'm sure some of them will meet with your approval." His tone was light but he didn't seem to be able to lose the threatening undertone it carried, or the way his eyes seemed to track like a predator stalking its prey. He turned slowly and she felt the overwhelming urge to run, she squashed it, crossing her arms across her chest and forcing herself to hold her ground.

"I'll let you know." She replied, wanting it to sound snarky, instead it sounded almost as tired as she felt. She'd just lost her best friend and a man she was more than a little bit in love with only to have him replaced with an older, snarkier version, who was forcing her to prove herself to him. She thought she was owed a little downtime, but if she suggested he drop her off home now she highly doubted he'd come back like 'her' Doctor would have.

He paused extending his hand to her, "Well then Oswin shall we see where you landed us?" Clara glanced once at his hand but couldn't quite bring herself to trust him enough to take it yet. He looked momentarily irritated before he shrugged dropping his hand and stalking ahead of her through the corridors. "We'll need to use the emergency exit for the time being, the TARDIS has already locked off the control room." He sighed, "Damn her, never can wait more than five minutes before fixing her face too."

The emergency exit looked exactly like it sounded... a chute. "Yes well, I imagine it would look rather different if we were in space, probably more like a pod, but as we are on a planet." He trailed off indicating she was to get in, Clara rolled her eyes, not bothering to ask why he wasn't going first as she sat down and pushed off, trying not to grin despite herself as the chute twisted and turned like a rollercoaster, until that was she shot out into bright sunlight and found herself rolling end on end in the dusty ground. The Doctor landed with more grace than she'd managed, jumping to his feet quickly whilst she was left briskly dusting herself off as she got slowly to her feet, surprised to find they were in some sort of arid desert, which she supposed explained the dirt.

The Doctor stood turning on the spot and giving the air a sniff, his sharp eyes focussing on one point for a fraction of a second before darting off to another until she was certain he'd clocked every inch of the space around them. At least that was behaviour she recognised and she found it mildly comforting to know he would still be hyper aware of everything around them. He rolled his jaw as if chewing the air and gave her a pointed look.

"Care to make a guess my dear Oswin?" she couldn't tell if the end of that sentence was laced with sarcasm or just his new way of speaking.

Clara turned glancing up at the sky, humouring him. There was one sun and a whole host of planets in the sky or maybe they were moons, she sighed. "No idea Doctor, I assume somewhere deadly given the Old Cows desire to make my life a misery."

The Doctor glanced between her and the TARDIS, "She does seem to have a particularly vindictive side that she's chosen to share with you and you alone. Perhaps you should feel honoured Oswin, the TARDIS considers most of my companions far too beneath her to bother tormenting."

Clara turned and gave him a glare trying not to let his words sink in too deep, maybe there was a deeper affection to the TARDIS' particular distaste for her, but she wasn't going to shake it off as purely spiteful just yet. "You're really going to keep calling me that?" she pressed, surprised he hadn't gotten bored of his latest little idiosyncrasy already.

He merely gave her a smile that told her to carry on believing what she would in that silly limited human way of hers. "You did give me the choice." He reminded her and she had to concede that in a moment of weakness she'd thought it would help them to bond if she offered up something. If she'd realised he was quite so... whatever this was, she probably would have waited a while before making such ill thought through gestures. But in a strange way it was oddly fitting that this new Doctor would choose to see her in a different way... to expect something different of her. That he would refuse to retrace old ground, even if it was something as simple as her name.

"And incidentally we are on Pyrovilia." He glanced around looking a little uneasy. "I've met the Pyroviles before, they were trying to use Vesuvius to convert the human population into rock creatures like themselves in an attempt to restore their home planet, which had been ... misplaced."

Clara gave him a look. "Please tell me you didn't misplace this planet?"

"Not me." He looked affronted. "I returned it; it was the Daleks that stole it. Although a slightly cockier version of me did destroy Pompeii when he detonated Vesuvius."

Clara tried to decipher if he was being serious or not and decided he was probably just trying to wind her up again so she remained silent staring around at the suddenly more ominous looking rocks. Tall tales aside, she was fairly certain he wasn't wrong about the planet, it looked the type of place that only some sort of rock-like creatures would evolve on.

"I remember you having more spunk than this." The Doctor told her sounding somewhat amused; although why that would amuse him she had no clue.

"I remember a few hours ago when you still called me Clara and you'd spent the last 600 years defending the people of a town called Christmas because it was the _right_ thing to do. Now look at you, bragging about decimating Pompeii." Ok so it was spiteful but she was still spinning from the last few hours, technically it was still Christmas day for her, so far it had turned out to be a fairly crap one. She'd had no Turkey whatsoever despite it finally being cooked, she'd survived a battle that had nearly erupted into a war that would envelop the Universe, her invented boyfriend had turned up for Christmas dinner naked, died and turned into someone she really didn't know and wasn't so sure she wanted to.

The Doctor clapped his hands together startling her as he let out a triumphant shout, "Ah there it is; that fire!" He strode to her and enveloped her in a hug that was decidedly uncomfortable, only furthering her feeling that this really wasn't the same man at all; even his hugs were wrong. Too cold, to wiry, too... something that just wasn't _'him'_. Clearly he didn't like the fact that she wasn't hugging back, maybe the rejection twice now in as many minutes from her stung because he lashed out with his words. "Do try to keep hold of that fire Oswin, wouldn't want you becoming a bore now would we." He clapped her soundly on the back and strode off into the dust. Apparently a cutting remark and striding off into the distance were also his thing now.

But there was one thing that she knew for certain now as she strode determinedly after him, something the TARDIS had tried to remind her in her own bitchy way; she'd been born to save the Doctor, she'd thought that was over, that she'd given enough lives to the task, seen all the faces of his that needed her help. Apparently the Universe had other plans, a whole new set of regenerations, a new set of Doctors and if this one was anything to go by, then he definitely still needed saving.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

It was as Clara was stumbling over another set of rocks stalking after the surprisingly quick footed Doctor that she tripped for the umpteenth time on a rock that wasn't a rock and promptly shot out from beneath her foot with some sort of rumbling eep, that landed her on her ass. It was poetic she thought really as she sighed, closing her eyes and just trying to remember it was still Christmas day... despite the stifling heat that was scorching her nostrils with every breath she took in.

It was at this point as she opened her eyes and the Doctor's amused visage filled her view as he stood over her, his hands elegantly behind his back that she noticed the planet appear in the sky above her. Ordinarily that wouldn't have caused her too much concern, after all this was an alien world, for all she knew that was a normal occurrence, planets popping into the sky like that, this sky already had a whole host of them in it. Except for the fact that she recognised the planet... it was easy to, hell she'd been seeing pictures of the damn thing her entire life before she'd taken a trip in big but small blue box and saw it for herself.

"Are you quite alright Oswin? I wasn't aware that walking would prove so challenging for you."

Clara blinked, closing her eyes and opening them again to take in the bright slightly orange sky, the vast assortment of suns, planets, moons and what was unmistakeably the Earth in the alien orbit. "Doctor." She began quietly as he squatted down beside her is concern apparently genuine when she didn't even attempt to get up. "When Pyrovillia got misplaced..." he nodded, "Did it by any chance end up in Earth's orbit?"

The Doctor blinked. Clearly whatever he'd expected her to say, that hadn't been it. He reached out a hand and placed it on her forehead. "Did you bang your ridiculously fragile human head when you fell?"

"Doctor." She pointed up at the sky. "Tell me that's not the Earth?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes but humoured her, his head lifted and he gave the image all of a fraction of a second before returning his eyes to her, the corner of his mouth twitched. "Yes that is most definitely the Earth in the sky." He sighed, "I must be getting old, didn't even bother to look up myself, just tasted the air, smelt the water vapour." He tutted. "Should have looked up." He stood, his knees cracked as he did so and he looked at them accusingly. "I'd probably have also noted what is unmistakably the lost moon of Poosh and the Adipose breeding planet floating up there."

Clara squinted at the other planets or moons in the sky and felt her gaze kept being drawn back to Earth. "We're not in Earth's orbit are we? Which means the Earth's moved. When did he Earth move?"

"Humans." The Doctor sneered. "You have the most remarkable inbuilt perception filters I have ever encountered." But he held his hand out to her and she grasped it firmly, letting him hoist her back onto her feet. His hand was on her back to steady her, he didn't remove it, lowering it instead to latch around her waist his fingers curling tightly, if she didn't know him better she'd have said he was nervous, then again did she really know him better?

"So if that's the Earth..." If the Doctor was nervous she was positively sick with it.

"We shouldn't be here." He muttered. "Only you, Impossible Girl, could have landed us here. Here shouldn't even exist. We're a second out of time with the rest of the Universe, surrounded by the largest Dalek army ever constructed about to detonate a reality bomb that will erase the Universe from existence and you land us right in the middle of it."

Clara quirked an eyebrow at him, mildly surprised by his irritation. "Isn't this the sort of thing that would usually make you giddy with excitement?"

The fingers of his right hand tensed where he had left it wrapped around her waist, as he stared up at the sky and what was clearly a Dalek vessel ghosting past. "Yes well. I have only just acquired this body I'd rather not lose it quite so soon. Besides I think four Doctors would be pushing it."

"Four?" she chose to ignore his revelation that he was actually admitting to being afraid he might die, which given the circumstances and the 600 years of war he'd just waged against the very enemy now floating overhead, she could perfectly understand. Instead she focussed on the other comment, his head lowered and she realised that he was holding her hand, or rather she was holding his. She hadn't even realised she'd taken it. He smiled softly brushing his thumb over the back of her hand, seemingly as surprised as her to find it within his grasp.

"Do you recall earlier today, from your perspective at least, me telling you about my regenerations, how once my tenth self was having a vain stage and had wasted a regeneration to stay the same face?"

Clara nodded. "The one with the pin stripes and cockney accent?" she recalled from their recent trip down memory lane.

"Well this is when he made that choice. Got shot by a Dalek, reunited with his long lost love Rose. Couldn't bare to change the face she loved, so dumped all that regeneration energy into a hand I lost another Christmas day... honestly I don't know why I bother celebrating that blasted day." Clara squeezed his hand lightly, trying to bring him back on track sensing a tangent coming on. "A human-Timelord metacrisis. The Doctor Donna is about to be born and a human Ten with a distinctly Donna personality will emerge and they'll save the day."

"Great." Clara sighed, "Nothing to worry about then."

"Ah." He made the soft sound like a tire deflating and Clara stepped around in front of him, he seemed to draw their linked hand closer to his chest and she chose to ignore it, placing her free hand on her hip, giving him what she hoped was a look he couldn't ignore.

"Explain it for my inferior human intellect please." She didn't even bother to ask how it was they'd managed to screw up the events occurring above their head, just certain that they had from his guilty expression, which she supposed should be hers, given as she'd landed them here. "She's set me up hasn't she, the Old Cow made it so I've gone and screwed up a landing good and proper."

The Doctor smirked. "I'll admit it was a rather remarkable bit of flying, I'm not sure even I could have created such a spectacular temporal knot as this."

Clara sighed. "Damn her, I'll bet she switched the control functions on the console just so I'd screw it up."

"Well. Yes. Possibly." He admitted, glancing up at the sky again uneasily, she watched him swallow distinctively. "But unfortunately the little tow-truck trick my past selves are about to perform on the Earth using their TARDIS will be rendered rather less effective with the presence of mine here, which will likely strand Pyrovillia and the Earth in the collapsing pocket Universe that is currently housing the Medusa Cascade and the displaced 26 planets."

"Can we just agree that you drive in future?" Clara snapped, glaring angrily up at the sky. "How long does her face-lift usually take, maybe she's done and we can just leave?"

The Doctor didn't respond as he dropped her hand, reaching inside his jacket pocket to extract his sonic, his none answer was answer enough. "Are we going to have to go up there?" Clara asked uneasily.

"I would imagine so." He responded coolly, examining the sonic. "This one isn't even mine yet either, the Old Girl's still cooking mine." He sighed tossing it through his clever fingers in a way she'd never seen him do before. "I can send out a pulse, the 'me's' up there will pick it up."

"And then what...?" Clara pointed out, "Sounds like there's already one hell of a party going on up there, one misstep, one spoiler too far and we're back to Gallifrey being gone, the Earth being lost and you not being... well you."

The Doctor gave her a look she couldn't interpret yet, but if she was guessing she was going with smug. "See, I knew you liked me." He waggled his overblown eyebrows at her in a way she supposed he thought was charming.

"Oh shut up Eyebrows and come up with a plan." Given as he didn't protest his new nickname she figured it would do until she could think of a new one.

"Well it all depends at what point in the events we've entered." He glanced up, "Judging by the Earth's recent arrival I'd say we've got seats for the matinee." His thumb brushed across his lips, his new thinking face she assumed as he gazed down at his shoes, she hadn't noticed them before they were some god awful red suede loafer... typical; he never could just dress sensibly the whole way down.

"Just how many of well, people like me, do you have up there with you anyway? You mentioned Rose and Donna." If those names meant something to him he didn't react and Clara filed that saddening piece of information away, they all faded to him in the end. Just ghost stories, footnotes in another man's life.

"A few." He muttered. "Did a bit of a victory tour on this one. Ten always was a bit of a show off." At least he had the decency to look mildly embarrassed about it now though she noted.

"Ball park here, how many memories and timelines are we potentially screwing up?" Clara worried her lip, the TARDIS would somehow blame her if one timey-wimey fact got altered because she'd had the nerve to try and pilot her, she just knew it. God she'd never find her bedroom again...

"Around 8, possibly 10, maybe 12 companions if we include the ones on Earth... give or take. Ones a robot dog if that helps which should be easier to fix. And a humanish version of me." He looked merely thoughtful, like that wasn't a calamity waiting to happen.

Clara gave him a slightly desperate look in return, "Any chance they beam you up and don't realise your, well another you. A future you?" Clara knew she was grasping at straws his particularly un-amused, 'foolish human' look didn't help any and she felt herself prickle. "Oh give me a break, it's been a stressful Christmas for all involved, aside from the whole 600 year war business, if you remember you did also turn up naked in front of my step-mother of all people. Now if I live through this I'll never hear the end of the 'mad Swedish Christmas boyfriend debacle', I'll be forced into endless blind dates to make up for the stress I put her through."

He gave her a dark look that closed her mouth abruptly reminding her that she wasn't entirely sure how stable this version of him was."Oswin, you're rambling, stop it. I'm trying to think. I'm not quite firing on all cylinders yet and what's going on upstairs is a big enough mess without a brand new untested me wading in."

Clara nodded, she managed to shut up for a whole ten seconds she reasoned, longer than he, the old he, usually fell quiet for at any rate. "Can we sneak up? I mean is there a back door like the emergency chute we just came in, someway of just communicating with the TARDIS, get her to do all the leg work without alerting the other you's?"

"No." Came his abrupt reply, but his thoughtful expression left her thinking she might have given him another idea. It was strange, normally his face or gesticulations gave it all away, but like this, she hadn't got a clue if he'd even got a smidgen of a plan A, let alone a B. His face was so still, except for his eyes, they seemed to radiate intent as he turned them on her now, the barest flicker of excitement finally reaching them. "There may be a brief window of opportunity though. There is a point where the TARDIS is being... eaten. Right when the metacrisis will happen. At that point it will only be him and Donna on board. And given as one of them will exit this Universe permanently and the other will lose their entire memory I can't see a better option."

"And the Old Cow?" Clara queried, if the old TARDIS was going to be used to perform this tow-truck trick and drag Earth back, what the hell were they going to do with the one that was currently on lock out down here? They couldn't just get in and move it. "The one down here I mean, what happens to her? I don't remember all that much from my time as a TARDIS technician, but I remember a TARDIS within a TARDIS being a bad idea. Just in case it was the one you were having."

"Of course it was." He muttered looking thoroughly irritated that it was too. "Do you have a better idea?" he snapped, knowing full well she didn't and slightly surprised he'd ask. "Although I did always wonder how the TARDIS survived the length of time it did inside the Crucible without it's shields and exactly what power the metacrisis me used to dematerialise her to safety given as the Dalek's had rendered it entirely powerless."

Clara glanced back to where the TARDIS stood, an outline of a box on the horizon of this arid landscape. "You think this is a destiny paradox? She bought us here because she had to, so that you could go back and save her?"

The Doctor followed her gaze. "Your flying wasn't that bad." He acknowledged giving her a smirk. "And so yes, probably. If we got the TARDIS to lock onto herself and bring us up right before they drained all the power out of the old one, our Old Girl would still be functional, even if she's locked within her regeneration cycle, her shields would extend around the outer vessel the moment we enter the crucible, a self defence mechanism. The power from our ship would bleed through into the old one, giving it the power to dematerialise. Then Away from the Dalek's stasis ring everything should come back on line."

"And the paradox... a TARDIS within a TARDIS?" Clara pushed, "how long can either of them sustain that for?"

"Well with one being completely powered down, the temporal vortex mostly at rest, it should be longer than usual. Long enough for our girl to maybe skip the last few stages of her regeneration and let us in I hope, at least once she realises the danger."

"And Plan B?" she queried.

"Come off it, I've barely got an A here. Which is better than _he_ used to do." The Doctor pointed out snarkily. "Come on, we need to get back to the ship. I can send out the emergency distress signal, but we'll need to get the timing right. It's got to be before the Dalek's power down the other TARDIs, which means it's got to be before the real me gets out. Hopefully the Dalek's attacking, the near death experience and the return of Rose will prove distraction enough that he won't notice an incoming TARDIS dematerialising in the bowls of his. If I get the timing really right, he might think the Dalek attack and us popping in, are one in the same."

Clara gave him a doubtful look. "Is that what you are this time around then, good at timing? Because I've got to say, it's never really been your strong suit." She hurried after him as he placed one long stride in front of the other, dashing back towards the TARDIS, not seeming in the least bit concerned by the sentient rocks that were getting under foot and causing her all manner of problems.

The Doctor shot her a look over his shoulder that managed to be affronted, but he didn't argue. "Let's hope I'm also lucky then shall we?"

"Doctor!" Clara called after him, panting slightly with exertion as he entered a full on sprint. "I take it there's no chance the Dalek's are going to detect this TARDIS?"

The Doctor stopped so abruptly she almost ran into the back of him as he spun on her, giving her one raised eyebrow before the unmistakeable glow of a transmat device enveloped them both. His muttered curse was the last thing she heard as they were both dematerialised.

They re-materialised inside what was unmistakeably a Dalek vessel, Clara made a move towards the Doctor and was immediately enveloped in a circle of light, she didn't need the jolt of pain the edge of the light gave her on contact to know a forcefield when she felt it. She turned her eyes on the Doctor, he looked furious, his entire body seemed to be quivering with rage. The TARDIS stood beside them, useless and impenetrable as it was right now, but at least still here, apparently the Dalek's were having some difficulties powering her down in regeneration mode because the lights were all still blinking away and there was a definite hum coming from her.

"Not a Destiny paradox then I assume?" Clara shouted at the Doctor through her light cage.

He rolled his eyes in response, hitting the wall of light with his foot and hissing in response.

"Terrific. The Old Cow really is going to kill me then, if the Dalek's don't get to it first." On the plus side Clara noted that there was no one else about, no other Doctor, his companions or the TARDIS. Just a slow line of trundling Dalek's that were filing in weapons poised.

"Who are you, and why do you possess the Doctor's TARDIS?" one of the Dalek's barked in its distinctive electronic screech of pure hatred.

"Two guesses." The Doctor smiled back at them, his hands behind his back, looking the very picture of ease, trapped as he was.

"You are not the Doctor. The Doctor is in the Crucible. You will be exterminated."

"Oh I am the Doctor. I'm the Doctor from your nightmares, I'm the Doctor that has seen and done all of this before, I'm the one who's ten steps ahead of you, the Old God, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Oncoming Storm." The Dalek actually seemed to wheel backwards at that, "And I don't have to do a thing. I've already done it. I'm just here to watch you fail again."

"You lie, you are not the Doctor, the Doctor cannot cross his own time-stream, it is not possible." The Dalek screeched, it seemed to Clara that its fear was every bit as strong as its fury in that moment.

"I am the Doctor." He shrugged, leaning forward so the Dalek could see the white's of his eyes as he stared defiantly back at it. "Now tell me I can't do it!"

A Dalek voice erupted through the speakers and Clara jumped, hissing as she hit the forcefield and singed her back. "Prepare for universal detonation. The fleet will gather at the Crucible. All Dalek's will return to shelter from the cataclysm. We will become the only life forms in existence." The static as it shut off was ominous and Clara glanced expectantly at the Doctor, but he wasn't looking at her, his attention was fixed on the Dalek before his cage.

"You are not the Doctor, the Doctor is in the Vault. You will bear witness to Dalek supremacy as you are unmade."

"We shall see." The Doctor snarled.

The speaker burst to life once more, this time it was an actual voice, but it sounded so close to a Dalek's that Clara could barely tell the difference. "The final prophecy is in place. The Doctor and his children, all gathered as witnesses. Supreme Dalek, the time has come. Now, detonate the Reality bomb!" his roar as he called for the end of the Universe was blood curdling and Clara watched the Doctor for any signs of a plan. Surely his past self hadn't let it get this far? Had they already interfered, was it too late?

The Dalek voice came over the speaker once more "Activate planetary alignment field."

Clara screamed "Doctor, do something!" her desperation becoming real as she demanded the impossible of him, but he didn't even look her way.

"Universal Reality detonation in two hundred rels." The Dalek's countdown continued.

"Detonation in twenty rels. Nineteen."

"Doctor, please." Clara pleaded and he finally looked her way.

"Have faith." He nodded, as if willing her to believe in the old him, knowing she wasn't quite ready to believe in the new him yet.

"Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The Dalek voice cut out and an alarm began to blare, the lights switching to a faded emergency glow of ominous red.

"System in shutdown. Detonation negative. Explain. Explain. Explain!" It was almost amusing to hear a Dalek panic, it was like music to her ears in that moment as utter relief washed through her, but that had been cutting it seriously fine.

"One?" She sceeched at the Doctor and he just shrugged a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Donna always did have a flare for the dramatic." He explained as if that was sufficient excuse for her near heart failure. The light-cages failed and the Doctor stepped out as the Daleks surrounding them raised their weapons... and did nothing.

"System malfunction. Motor casing interference. What is happening? Explain!"

The Doctor stalked right up to the Dalek that had been doing the talking and quite deliberately pushed it with his hand, sending the thing spinning out of the way, apparently utterly unable to control its motor functions. The rest seemed to be having the same problem as Clara took in the sight of hundreds of Dalek's spinning on their axis, screaming inside their metal cages as the vast room they had been in became apparent to her.

"They're helpless." Clara whispered in awe as the Doctor strode towards her.

"Yes and the human Doctor is about to throw a tantrum." He grasped her hand and dragged her firmly out of the way back towards the TARDIS as the Dalek's began to scream as their casings blew, one by one, the explosions alighting the room like fireworks. He glanced back. "Like shooting fish in a barrel," he noticed her unease, "I know hardly sporting is it, but in my defence I was human now... and they had tried to erase the Universe."

He lifted his spare hand, the other still gripped hers tightly as he pounded on the TARDIS doors with his fist. "Open up!" he bellowed. Clara stared horrified as the Dalek ship began to collapse around them, in minutes the whole damn thing was going to be a burning mass and the TARDIS was only inches away from them. "I will not die here you blasted machine, do you hear me! Open these damn doors now or so help me I will fix the chameleon circuit and deliberately break it again so you're left looking like a Silurian birthing pod for all eternity!"

The TARDIS was glowing, inside and out.

"Yes, yes I know what your damn well doing, now now now!" he roared his fist pounding so hard against the wood Clara was convinced he'd break his own hand. The TARDIS gave a hiss and steam began erupting from her to match the steam and smoke that was starting to choke the life out of them from the ruined Dalek's as the Crucible began to fail. One last pound and the TARDIS doors flew inwards at his insistence, but his grip on her hand was absolute and Clara was dragged inside as the doors slammed shut. It took Clara's eyes a minute to adjust, and then she blinked again.

The TARDIS console room was a hot mess. Clearly the old girl hadn't finished putting her face on because there were bits of caballing and half moulded banisters and railings everywhere. But first and foremost there was glass, or at least what Clara thought was glass, it was like she was stood inside a giant goldfish bowl looking out at their surroundings as the Doctor flew to the controls, his hands working feverishly until they were pitched into the vortex with a wheezing protest from the TARDIS. A fact she could tell because as she looked out she could see its magnificence all around her.

"Are we safe?" she asked, reaching the console and trying to get his attention as she pointed out the see-through walls.

"What?" he frowned, squinting about as he took in the state of it. "Yes, yes perfectly." He looked away pausing a moment before he turned back to her his hand grasping her bicep tightly "Although don't get too close, radiation shieldings a bit iffy when the walls are translucent." She nodded aware that his grip was becoming painful, something of it must have shown on her face as he glanced at his hand and slowly the fingers uncurled as he released her.

"So that's it. History was unchanged?" he didn't respond so Clara crossed to the console herself and pulled the screen to her, it looked fragile this time, a thin transulescent layer of glass. Very spacey-wacey as the 'other' him would have said. Clara punched in the events of today, the Earth had been returned the Companions were all back in there respective time zones, it was interesting putting the names to the faces as she flicked through; then she punched in the Doctor's timeline, that too seemed unaltered from what she knew of it. Her eyes flicked to the TARDIS, the Doctor was already tinkering, his head beneath the console, Clara placed her hand on the centre panel whispering in her head, 'look after him, he's still not done cooking either.'

"So Doctor." Clara called, he finally raised his head. "That was your plan, do nothing?" He frowned, "Because that was what you did. Just stood there and watched. The world could have ended, the Universe could have ended, just by being there we could have unwritten it all and still you did nothing."

The Doctor stood, that smooth reptilian grace back again as he stalked forwards his face jutting out towards hers in a sneer that was more than a little terrifying. "It worked didn't it?"

Clara blinked. "You really are an ass this time round." She muttered making to stalk away. "Take me home."

He spun on her, grasping both her arms this time in his painful grasp, "No." His hissed word was clear enough.

"You aren't the man you were. I need time to think." She insisted, trying to shake him off and finding she couldn't which ratcheted up the panic again, all of this couldn't be good for a human heart, far too much strain.

"Don't you understand." He bellowed clasping her face and forcing her to cry out in pain. "I did exactly what was needed, me, for the first time in history, I did nothing. I didn't interfere I didn't screw up the time-line. Even the Dalek's new better than to interfere, they are geniuses you see, they understand time as much as a Timelord; and they knew, knew that if I was there then they must have failed... and still they didn't dare alter the time-line." His eyes bored into hers, frightening and unknowable and so full of something all at once. "Sometimes we could learn a thing or two from the Daleks."

Clara reacted she couldn't help it, if he was seeing sense with the Dalek's then he had truly lost his mind. She struck him soundly across his cheek and his hands fell away, Clara stumbled, loose finally. She fled to the other side of the console as he stood straight touching his reddening cheek with clear surprise, at least she'd only slapped him, if she'd really wanted to do him harm she'd have closed her fist when she'd hit him. He raised those eyes again to her and stalked to the other side of the console, letting it separate them.

"Take me home." She whispered, her voice broke over the word.

"No."

"No?" she spat back, stunned. "So you're what, into kidnapping school teachers now?"

He blinked and she thought maybe he was starting to see sense. "Funny you should mention that, it wouldn't be the first time. You really should have a chat with the Head of Governor's at that old school of yours, I'd imagine he'd be able to tell you a thing or two about a grumpy old man and a magic box." Clara opened her mouth and closed it again... she'd distinctly remembered that face; was that what he was again, first time out in a new set of regeneration, was he back to factory settings?

"No, _he_ was grumpy; _you_ are an angry, forgetful, guilt ridden old man, with no bow tie, who's kidnapping me!"

Clara felt something inside of her snap and she hit the TARDIS console with both her palms, so what i it was transference but she was angry at both of them right now. "You Old Cow! Take me home." the tears broke through, "Please." She begged, dropping her head to the console and quietly sobbing. It was too much, all of it and she still needed to mourn.

"She won't." The Doctor admitted, stroking the console softly as he made his way around to her. "She knows I need you, the TARDIS may be many things, but she is always exactly what I need her to be." Clara lifted her head to see him smiling softly at his old faithful companion. "Just like you have always been, Impossible Girl."

"I'll come back." She swore lifting her head and letting him see her tear stained face. He closed the distance between them, his hands raised and she flinched, but his grip was gentle this time as he cradled her face.

"You won't." His hands were soft but his expression was fierce, desperate. "Because I'm not the man I was." He admitted. "That's why you need to stay Oswin, you can help me become a better man."

"How?" she managed, "You're impossible, you never listen to a damn thing anyone says."

"Oh come now. You were there, you stopped me, all three of me in fact, from making the singular most important and catastrophic mistake of my many lifetimes."

He was looking at her like she was some sort of salvation and she backed away from him, "All I did was talk sense into you." She pointed at his chest "_You_ stopped yourself, you came up with the way of saving Gallifrey. Not me."

"Semantics." He muttered. "You are a spark, you always have been. Something that ignites greatness in others; in me." He sighed looking like it pained him to admit it, "I need that now, because this," he swept his hand down at himself, "it's a whole new me... a me born out of a war that lasted centuries, born out of hopelessness. And if I am to live up to this name that I have been cursed with..."

Clara cut him off with a sharp word "Gifted." She corrected glaring solidly at him as he pursed his lips, looking like the jury was out on that. "The name you have been _gifted_ with." Finally he nodded.

"Then show me Clara Oswin Oswald."


	3. Chapter 3

Her room was too nice, too large, the bed too comfy the pillows too fluffy, and when she felt even the faintest bit tired it would materialise around the nearest corner. "I'm not buying it." Clara snapped at the walls when she found the latest 'gift' from the TARDIS was some sort of massage function, she punched the fluffy pillow angrily as she tried not to feel ridiculously comfy. "Keep on pretending to be as nice as you want, this is just confirming your guilt!" Clara added rolling her eyes. "I remember when I did eventually find it, the last bedroom that you had so kindly made for me, it was basically a damp broom-cupboard with a camp bed, a thin lumpy mattress and no pillow. This is just guilt because your new man won't let me leave." There came the unmistakeable brush of thoughts against her mind suffusing her with feelings of warmth and love that she tried to shake off, as if the TARDIS was stroking her like she was some errant kitten throwing a tantrum.

"Stop it!" she hissed at the Blue Box, running her fingers through her hair and rolling over turning her back to the wall.

It had been like this for two weeks. Two weeks trapped inside an all but infinite interstellar, sentient space ship that was trying to make nice sounds like it might be fun... and it was for about five minutes. But a cage was a cage. They didn't have to lock the doors or any nonsense like that, no spinning elaborate labyrinths with the internal architecture to keep her inside, they just simply had to stay away from Earth and the 21st Century and she had little choice but to stay put. Although she had considered sending out a distress signal to Emperor Porridge when they'd wound up in his Galactic Empire once more. She'd threatened the Doctor with it, he'd looked mildly amused and slightly perturbed all at the same time, but then rather obnoxiously reminded her that Cybermen were one thing, but for going up against the Doctor the Emperor would probably not have accepted anything less than her up-front hand in marriage this time round.

Then again she was only half serious about this whole 'kidnapped' thing. Yes it was technically true that she wasn't being given the opportunity to leave, but she had, with severe reservations, agreed to help the angry old bastard. Which meant that most of her half-hearted attempts were little more than wobbles designed to get some sort of reaction out of him.

Even if it seemed to be the TARDIS that was responding, the Box seemed to have taken her last particular threat to heart. When she'd returned to her room a few nights ago there had been a chair that looked remarkably like a throne and what was unmistakably a statue of her wearing something resplendent and brandishing a sceptre. Clara stared at the statue her mouth curving up into a grin despite herself. "Oh please... like my nose looks anything like that." She huffed, turning around and dismissing the work, but feeling a slight thrill at actually having the upper hand on 'Old Blue' for a change. Although maybe she was more fickle than she thought, because she hadn't called her 'Old Cow' even in her head for a while now.

As for the Doctor, he'd been going out on 'field trips' as he'd started calling them, or when he was being particularly pedantic, 'scientific excursions'. He even took instruments with him this time, she imagined he probably knew how to use about half of them, this version of him might be many things but she didn't think it was especially tech saavy, his grasp of TARDIS control hadn't improved a fat lot from when he'd asked her to fly it. It was like he'd deleted that entire section of his intellect and replaced it with crotchetiness and an odd penchant for swearing and singing, or both. The singing was only slightly more disturbing than the swearing, mostly because he seemed to like sea shanties, although this was a ship he was sailing through space, she'd called him Captain once... he'd liked it so much she'd refused to call it him again, what was the point in a nickname you like? Of course he hadn't invited her out on these excursions and she hadn't asked, in fact she got the distinct impression that every time he came back he was growing more and more disgruntled. As if he was trying to find his feet out there and kept discovering they were both 'left'.

He was on one such excursion when Clara found herself idly sat in the console room, she didn't want to admit she was waiting for him, but he'd made an odd gesture she thought deserved comment. This morning after his last, late night trip to the Krillian moons of Novos, apparently the home of the galaxies greatest tailors. Apparently he'd been looking for a new super tensile strength rope to make use of down in the bowls of the ship. What he'd ended up with, probably when the overwhelming tedium of a planet full of fabric caught up with him, was an exquisitely beautiful scarf that had been hanging almost carelessly over her door knob, like he wanted her to think he'd just forgotten it there. Clara had no idea what the scarf was made of, only that it seemed to change colour and more importantly texture to whatever best suited her mood... that and the scent. As she wrapped it around her neck now it was something like caramel coloured silk and channelling the distinct aroma of chocolate, honey and ever so slightly vanilla. Maybe that meant she was content? Or perhaps that she needed comforting... one or the other.

The Doctor stalked back inside the doors slamming violently behind him as he emerged slightly out of breath and giving her a hesitating glance, before he charged to the console and began frantically shoving buttons. Clara waited patiently, seeing the tension pooling between his shoulder blades and in the way his lip curled up almost to a sneer which she was certain he wasn't aware he was doing. Finally he was done, she watched as they entered the vortex which was projected all around them. Clearly he wanted out of there in a hurry.

"So?" she enquired "Good trip?"

He sighed heavily turning and his eyes hovering on the scarf, she could see the question warring in him long before he finally asked it. "You liked it?" he asked, and the hopefulness in his voice made her momentarily reconsider her current line of questioning. Until that was she noticed what seemed to be green goo on his boots.

"It's beautiful." She acknowledged. "Thank you." His eyes narrowed, clearly expecting the but.

"Come on then, out with it." He muttered, gesturing for her to do her worst.

Clara felt just as tired with this current situation, but she'd promised, she was damn well going to play her part. "Doctor, what is the point in me helping you discover the new you, helping you become a better man than you fear you currently are, if you go wandering off getting into the kind of trouble you always do and leave me stuck in here?"

"I'm not ready yet." He replied, as if that explained everything.

"Something we both agree on. So why are you doing this on your own?"

"I don't mean I'm not ready yet... I mean." He looked uneasy. "I'm not even getting the basics right. It's like I'm geared to cause havoc wherever I go, only this time I don't have the mad urge to fix it, instead I just watch whilst it all collapses around me. And I can't seem to bring myself to care." He looked horrified at the admission, which was at least something, even she could see that at least him being bothered that he wasn't bothered was progress.

But it still meant he was being a dolt as Clara rolled her eyes growing easily irritated with him and this old argument. "So why am I not out there... helping?" she couldn't help that her voice had gone up an octave, after weeks she was still no closer to understanding what was going on inside his head.

He gazed coolly back at her making her shift uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm not safe Oswin." He finally admitted and she nodded, trying to encourage him to explain at the very least, something he'd always struggled with. It had taken her diving into his time-stream for his predecessor to trust her enough to start talking to her like a regular person, rather than someone he was constantly trying to impress. His sigh was expressive, she could only imagine the tedium of being thousands of years old and still not able to understand the faintest thing about yourself or your actions, he'd have been a therapists nightmare. "I try to help and all I do is make things worse... people keep getting hurt." The shame that flitted across his face was real and Clara eased herself up out of her seat gently, approaching him like he was an animal that might bolt, or bite, at the slightest provocation. But her heart went out to him with his quiet admission, clearly this wasn't something that was going to be a quick fix, she hadn't seen him out there, she couldn't be sure if he was just judging himself harshly, blaming himself for things beyond his control, or if he was genuinely dangerous. Her gut told her he was the Doctor, danger found him... he didn't seek it or cause it.

"Doctor." She breathed, hating the way her voice broke, the pity she knew he'd loathe her aiming his way as she reached for his hand. He took it though, gratefully, clutching it like she was his lifeline, but his expression hadn't softened, she wasn't sure it could and that broke her heart just a little bit too.

He didn't let her say more than his name, barrelling on, that energy he'd radiated as he swiftly plotted them a course away from the planet was back in force. "How am I supposed to let you stand beside me when I'd be putting you in danger?" he challenged and she couldn't quite get her response 'because she had chosen to be there' out before he carried on his anger taking on a more self-flagellating tone. "And not the usual brand of danger... this is different, it's like I've got a nose for the most despicable, contemptible, loathsome happenings going on in the Universe and I just can't resist sticking my oar in!"

"Because you're the Doctor." Clara insisted, feeling like a stuck record. "That's what you do!"

His expression twisted and she flinched at the explosion he became, his voice making the entire console room shake with the intensity "But it's just not as easy as it was!" he bellowed and she looked away, she didn't want to see him like this, raw and exposed, lost. "It's like I'm getting there too late," his voice dropped an octave, calmer. "After the buttons been pushed instead of right in the nick of time."

"That's not your fault." Clara tried to console him her hand reaching out for his shoulder only to have him brush her away furious with the act.

"No!" he roared, slamming his hand down on the console and causing Old Blue to ring out a warning bell dangerously. The Doctor glared at the matrix unapologetically. "You don't understand, when I do get there on time, I keep getting it wrong. Making it all worse and I can't even see that's what I'm doing until it's done! I can't get it right!" His frustration had finally come to a head and he bowed his head, his hands gripping the edge of the console with white knuckles, his chest heaving, but she'd know there wouldn't be a tear in his eye... this wasn't a Doctor that cried, this one raged.

Clara reached out and touched his back, feeling the ripple of her unwelcome contact go straight through him. She waited, feeling him go still and accept the gentle pressure as the warmth of her hand radiated out and slowly he turned to face her, his expression carefully schooled, all except those eyes, the old sad eyes that had grown fierce.

Her palm went to his face ignoring his attempt to pull away by moving with him, forcing him to look at her. "Doctor, please, take me with you. Let me help you. All you need is someone to help you see that you're moral compass has just gotten a little mis-aligned." She was hoping and praying that it was all it was, but she had to have faith in him, she owed him that much. "That's what I'm here for, to point you on the right track again." She felt steel creep up her spine, difficult when he was giving her 'that' stare. "But I can't do that stuck in here you dolt!" she snapped dropping his chin and staring nose to nose at him. Getting right up in his face, forcing him to see her, to listen seemed to be the only way these days. To let him rage and either wait until it had passed or step right on in until you hit the eery calm in the eye of the storm. "If you want to go out and keep getting it wrong, and wallowing in your own self pity, then you might as well have left me at home. You could pop in for a visit that way and I'd give you a telling off, you'd promise to do better learn nothing and come slinking back in an even worse mess than before. Just like now!"

He knocked her hand away from his face, breaking the contact and pitching her back out of the eye and into the storm. "Don't talk to me like a child." He snarled, "You're the child compared to me."

Clara had never felt the urge to argue until she was blue in the face, but by God did he make her want to come close. "You ass! I am damn well as old as you, probably older and you know it, even if I don't remember it all. And that was your fault too you know, not this _you_, the last _you_, because of something he got pretty damn wrong and I had to fix!" He looked liked she'd slapped him, she possibly should have, maybe it would have been kinder. "News flash, you've been getting things wrongs for Centuries. The difference was, you didn't give up, didn't let it beat you, you kept trying, because when you got it right... my stars you were _something_ when you got it so, so right." She hadn't realised she'd been gesticulating at him, but he got her so damn mad.

He grasped both her waving hands by the wrists, and held her there, not a word, nose to nose sharing a breath.

"You want me to shut-up, then easy, just tell me to go!" Clara pressed, leaning in even closer, daring him to do it, because she was lying to herself just as much as he was. This wasn't a kidnapping, if she wanted off this ship she'd have found a way. She was exactly where she needed to be, even if it wasn't currently where she _wanted_ to be. There was something satisfying about being needed by a man like the Doctor, something that soothed her considerable ego, but she wasn't stupid enough to fall into a trap like this; she wouldn't just stand by and do doing nothing whilst he destroyed himself and his name. She'd and all of her fractured selves had worked too bloody hard to make sure he was still the man he was meant to be today.

Apparently he wasn't the only one who could get good and proper furious, because right now, she was blistering. "Shame on you." She hissed. "What did I sacrifice all that for, all those years. For this, for you?"

The Doctor was breathing so hard it was like he'd run a marathon and her cheeks were burning, her chest pounding behind her ribcage and there was a lump in her throat that threatened to choke her, but that may just have been the scarf which had turned an violent red, veined with black as it twisted and scratched like rope against her skin, the smell of burning embers rising between them.

"What do you want Clara?" He hissed, but she heard the desperation in it, the way his voice broke over her name, her real name, the first time he'd dared to call her by it, like he was claiming it finally for himself.

Clara stepped into him, feeling his hearts pounding almost in tandem with hers behind his chest as it rose and fell sharply. "I want you to trust me, Doctor." She breathed, her voice soft and low. "You're so concerned about me trusting you, that you haven't even tried placing yours in me."

His lips quirked, his wit was dry now, but that devilishly quick mind of his had finally found a tongue that could match it. "I've found that in my experience putting my faith in impossible things is a fools folly."

"Then you haven't trusted the right impossible thing."

His thumb brushed across her lips and just a whisper of something slid across her mind, Clara inhaled sharply her eyes closing as she tried not to succumb to the way her knees tried to buckle. He was gone when her eyes opened moments later leaving her feeling oddly bereft and elated at the same time, because she knew she'd done it, she'd finally reached him. The barest hint of him had touched her thoughts and that was all it had taken for him to leave something behind, something she'd lost once... his _first_ name.

As far as a demonstration of trust went, she supposed she could live with that.

Unconsciously she found her fingers had risen to press against her lips where the touch of his mind had been, why was it the smallest gesture from him always left the deepest fingerprints? And why did she stubbornly refuse to listen to her own advice, because loving the Doctor was easy, it was like breathing, but falling _in love_ with him, that was hard and painful and absolutely the one thing you should never do; which was what made him Impossible too.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

The TARDIS doors closed behind them and Clara had a moment to reconsider as she stared at the deep blue wood of them before the Doctor quite deliberately brushed his fingers over her shoulder, a hesitant gesture, as she was quite sure he was still questioning how she'd managed to talk him into letting her out. To her eternal surprise they weren't on Earth, or Blackpool as he'd threatened, Space Vegas had come up but it was still too soon since her _almost_ holiday with his previous self for such an attempted trip. No instead this was a brand new alien world. No coddling needed.

She'd been on surprisingly few properly alien worlds. A lot of ships... or boats. "So where are we?" she turned giving him her full attention surprised to find he was watching her not the surroundings. "and when?" she added.

The Doctor gave her a long look before he turned his attention on their surroundings. A half smile pulled at his features as if he was remembering something fondly. "Well," his pause was pregnant. "We're on a planet with no name. At least to its native inhabitants," Clara gave him a questioning look, "I'm sure they call it something but they've never shared that information with the rest of the Galaxy so it's known as the Twinned Worlds of the Augur."

Clara stared up at the large planet evident in the night sky, wishing slightly that he'd bought her to a planet where the only thing in the sky was clouds after their last almost disastrous trip together, but she wasn't going to argue, as far as she was concerned she was outside Old Blue. "I take it that's the twinned world?" she pointed.

He nodded. "Inhabited by a colony of humans, this is the year 5000 and something, the 2nd Great and Bountiful Human Empire and we are in the 2nd galaxy of the Tri-Galactic." He rolled his eyes at her slightly smug look that he still wasn't able to work the TARDIS controls properly to know the exact year.

"Ok then, so this is the same time period around Porridge's reign?"

The Doctor's lip did that unpleasant little twitch again which seemed to happen whenever she mentioned the Emperor. "He was one man with a limited life-span, just because we are in the same millennia that his particular dynastic lineage began, does not mean that we will be running into him." His tone was cutting and she suppressed the smirk, he was far too easy to tease like this and it was hardly fair.

"So," she changed the subject deliberately linking her arm in his and forcing him to walk with her through the purple grasses on the pleasant alien hillside, for him it was almost tranquil and she started to suspect he may have deliberately taken her to a point in time where she was completely safe. The scarf he'd given her was still wrapped around her neck and was at the moment a soft delicate woven wool pattern with gentle lilac hues giving off a distinctly strawberry scent. "If the twinned world is inhabited by humans, what about this world?"

He smiled genuinely, a secretive thing that touched his eyes briefly and Clara couldn't help but wonder at it, at this man of such extraordinary contradictions. "I thought you might like to see something... the origin of the alien myth on Earth I believe." They walked to the head of a cliff top and he pointed down at a small camp made up of what were obviously primitive dwellings, something made by hand and meant only to last the season.

Clara felt her mouth fall open slightly in surprise, leaning forward for a closer look. "Is that..." she couldn't find the word, "Are they?" she tried again.

"I think you humans used to call them 'Greys'." He patted her arm as if trying to reassure her.

"But are they supposed to be the ones that do all the well... abducting and probing?" she indicated. "The Roswell crash and all that?"

The Doctor smiled. "That's the great thing about time travel, it's been 5,000 years since the Roswell incident. Sometimes species regress."

"From spaceships to mud huts?" Clara managed, trying not to sound like she thought it was a ridiculous notion.

"Yes well, I think their experience with humans from the 20th Century had something of an impact, they withdrew from space exploration, went back to their own planet where they decided that technology was an evil." He rocked back on his heels, watching the former mighty alien race as it went about its current business as a nomadic peaceful one tending the lands.

Clara knew there was a stinging comment somewhere in that about the human race that she chose not to bite at. "They don't look very Gray. More mottled purple." She observed, noting the same overlarge heads, the huge black eyes and oversized limbs. It was all a bit x-files of the Home Counties.

"Adaptive camouflage." He explained "The grey suited space exploration and their vessels, this well its more now." He indicated the rolling purple and green grasses that reached waist height in places.

Clara followed him cautiously as he made his way towards the small settlement. "If they don't like humans, should we really be heading towards them looking, well human?" she called after him, trying to keep her voice from raising alarm.

The Doctor laughed, an odd disjointed thing this time round. "I'm not human Oswin." And just like that she was back to Oswin. Typical, one comment he didn't like.

"Try telling them that." She muttered stomping up beside him as he reached the edge of the camp, his arms wide, she imagined he was trying to look friendly, it was always going to be difficult she imagined with that face and demeanour, his eyes were wild and probing now and she saw them sear into each one of the unsuspecting aliens.

No words were spoken but unless Clara was very much mistaken some dialogue was exchanged because the creatures approached, hostile at first, the Doctor gesticulated, even going so far as a smile, they backed off slightly and invited them forward with hesitant watchful eyes to their large fire despite the relatively pleasant temperatures of the midday on this world.

"Did I miss something?" she pressed and he quirked an eyebrow at her.

"You weren't able to hear that?" he seemed genuinely surprised; "Ah yes, I forget sometimes you seem so much more than merely human." Clara prickled at that, but he continued on unbothered by his comment or her reaction to it. "They are a telepathic race. That is why this planet has no name, it's more like a sensation, like petals falling on the skin."

"Terrific." And she did find it fascinating, "But you explained the come in peace bit and the absolute no-probing policy right?" She was only half joking as she eased herself down onto the large wooden log that he'd placed himself upon in front of some rather 'greyer' looking Roswells, elders she assumed.

"Oh no need. There are no lies here, they know I am a Time-Lord, even if they don't know what that is, they sense I am a traveller with a long and colourful history."

"And me?" she eyed them nervously.

"Are under my protection." He intoned ominously and she shut her mouth abruptly, trying not to roll her eyes at his grandiose statement, remembering when he'd said it before in more appropriate times. "They would however like to speak with you." He gestured to them.

"I don't think I have the equipment for it." She surmised seeing his amused expression lighten fractionally. "Do I?"

"I can lend it to you." He admitted. "Although it will be disconcerting for the duration. I would ask that you try not to pry too much through the connection it would create between us." He lifted his hand, indicating that she should come closer. Clara hesitated, the thought that it might hurt didn't occur, this Doctor was many things, but she got the impression that whatever he liked to pretend, she was somehow precious to him too, like a fond memory he wanted to cling to. But did she really want to know his mind, she'd only recently been declaring her confusion over it, her desire to understand him, but did she want this? In the end her curiosity won out and she leant into him, his hand slid around the back of her neck and she tried not to shudder at the sensation of his skin against the base of her skull as he gently guided her forehead towards his.

The moment their foreheads connected Clara felt it like an explosion within her mind, like she was back inside his timeline falling and burning and dying all at once. "Where am I?" she screamed into the abyss. The Doctor caught her in this world as he had in the real one, his hands grasping her firmly and righting her perspective, guiding her into a small quiet room in his mind that was currently a meadow like the camp outside in the real world, in which the Grey's sat, there huge black eyes radiating.

The Doctor was right, there were no words, just impressions, feelings, images. She sensed curiosity, images flickered to life like a hologram in front of her, the Grey in front indicating with his hand that the pictures were him, his life, his experiences.

Clara clasped the Doctor's hand tightly, feeling him encourage her forwards without a word. "How do I do this?" she hissed back, turning to look at him and feeling her mind going simultaneously blank and buzzing. He looked so different and so familiar, like every face he'd ever born had been merged into one whole. This was the Doctor as he saw himself, neither old nor young, happy nor sad, angry nor tranquil, he just _was_ and it was beautiful to behold. One look at this face and you would know everything there was to know about him... that he was utterly unknowable, no wonder the Grey's had simultaneously recoiled and invited him in.

"Your life is an open book here Clara. You need only pick it off the shelf and put it down in front of them."

Clara wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. "I take it I can't edit chapters?"

He smiled that majestic smile which on this blended face was both ancient and innocent. "What could you possibly have to be ashamed of my dear?"

Clara tried to formulate an answer that would explain the concept of privacy and personal moments that were hers and hers alone, thoughts she would rather keep within the contents of her own mind, before she considered how incredibly rude that would seem. Here was a an alien man, almost 2000 years old by her current reckoning, baring his soul to a bunch of simple mud-hut dwelling little Grey men and she was worrying about letting them see a few insignificant moments in her considerably insubstantial life. The book appeared in front of them with a huge thud that seemed to rattle the inside of the mental room and Clara stared at it in surprise, it was a huge tome, bigger even than the history of the Time War she'd glanced once in the Library in a now defunct reality.

"How...?" she tried, "That isn't me?"

The Doctor stepped forward drawing her with him, his contact remaining on her back and she wondered just what would happen if he broke the connection? Would she be pitched back into the maelstrom of what she assumed must be the Time Lord mind she had witnessed in all its terrifying glory before? "It is you Clara. Every you, all the echo's, every life you have lived, every moment in all of time that you have reached out and sacrificed yourself for a single Time Lord, for me."

Clara hadn't got the words as the pages flickered before them, images swirling of a girl, sometimes it was her, sometimes it wasn't, the Doctor pervaded her life, her every life and the Grey's passed through it like she was a museum peace to be treated reverently.

When they were done mere moments later Clara felt tears prick her eyes, she had seen her lives, felt them crushing her with the weight of them when she had entered his time-stream, but those memories had faded out of necessity when she was combined into the whole and pulled out. When she was just Clara again. Now they were fresh and painful and wonderful.

The Grey's reciprocated, their simple tomes laid out before her, a life of simple pleasures and great wonder, stories of love, life and fears, that were in this place every bit as moving as her own and as towering as the Doctors.

"Thank you." She whispered as the final tome of a life was closed and she stared into the unfathomable eyes of the alien creature before her that had shown her all that it was to be him and rejoiced in the telling of it.

The Doctor's grip on her arm tightened and she felt the brush of his lips against her temple. "Take a breath Clara, it will be over in a moment." She had an instant to inhale before she was pitched back into the whirling maelstrom that had so shattered her psyche once before, struggling against the riptide as it threatened to engulf her again, before she emerged, to find his hands wrapped tenderly around her face his forehead inches from hers as his wild eyes were back set in this new face that held only a trace of what had been before, but it was a trace she could pick out now.

"You're back." He breathed, his smile genuine as he continued to hold her whilst she trembled violently against him, his arms enveloped her and she found herself seeking comfort in his embrace again, different arms, different hearts beating behind his chest, but inexplicably him.

"That was incredible." She tried not to let the sheer raw power of the experience overwhelm her as she sat, trying to remember how to breathe.

His fingers brushed delicately through her hair. "You'll need a few moments to recover, telepathy is never something the human brain adapts to well, you're species is simply not built for it."

Clara nodded. "Understatement." She breathed, closing her eyes to the sensation of his fingers, so clever this time round, as they found every aching point in her skull and gently eased it away. So far she couldn't see any of this monstrous Doctor whose moral compass was so askew he'd been terrified to expose her to it.

"What did you think of their lives Oswin?" he asked gently and she sighed at his now stubborn refusal to call her by her name once more.

"I think they were beautiful." She admitted.

"Yes they were that." He intoned. "Simple." He added. "But perhaps I was wrong, it would seem that this species has learnt to edit the chapters of its own lives in such a mindscape."

Clara lifted her head staring at his harsh expression. "Edit? You mean they lied in there?"

"Omitted." The Doctor rephrased, turning his attention to the elder Grey in front of him, the one whose life had been laid bare first in a gesture of trust. "A simple life perhaps, but an all consuming fear. A terror that has blanketed every facet of their lives."

Clara turned horrified, staring at these creatures, then back at him. "What are they so afraid of?"

"Humans." The Doctor replied and Clara felt eyes shift to her.

"Because of the 20th Century? Their experiences with Earth all those years ago?" she tried to recall what it was about the Roswell incident that would have traumatised a species so. Ok so autopsies weren't great, but surely that couldn't be it?

"No, I'm afraid that didn't set the best precedent, but it is the current human race in the twinned world that seems to be causing them the current bother." Clara watched as more of the aliens appeared from huts, they held weapons, rudimentary she imagined, but more than she had currently to hand.

"Doctor?" She managed to express her concern in one word apparently because his arm tightened around her.

"You are quite safe." He assured her. "They do not consider you human. They believe you are like me. A woman of many lives, many times."

"What are the humans doing to terrify them so much?" Clara eyed him, trying to understand what she had missed that clearly his naturally telepathic Time-Lord brain had been unable to be fooled by.

"Abducting them, to perform experiments."

Clara froze. The eeriness of that statement when surrounded by the Roswell Grey's was not lost on her and she turned trying to see the evidence in front of her. "Why?"

The Doctor looked furious. "To harvest the telepathic inducing neurotransmitters in their brains that might for a brief moment imbue a human with their abilities."

"But you said human brains weren't meant to use telepathy?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes in clear exasperation. "And how very human it is, to experiment with things that ought to be left well alone, dangerous things that would likely destroy them... or in this case result in a slow agonising death as their brains liquefy. After they have no doubt lost all semblance of rational cognitive thought and memory."

"Why would they do that, surely we're not entirely stupid?" Clara tried to argue for her species but wasn't sure she was equipped to do it given the current evidence.

"Like all drugs Clara, I imagine such an experience becomes addictive."

"So they are addling their brains to experience the high of being telepathic for a few moments and using these poor creatures to do it?"

"Quite." The Doctor supplied, "From what my friend here has explained whilst you have been wrapping your head around the concept of humans not being entirely the noble species you envision. The 'taken ones' are returned stripped of the gland that produces this telepathic enzyme and utterly unable to communicate." The Doctor stood, glancing around the horizon as if looking for something. "In this form they quickly descend into mindless beasts whose only respite is to feast upon the brain stems of their own kind for even a moments relief that the chemicals within offer."

Clara took a moment to run that through a filter. "So planet of the Zombie Grey's."

The Doctor grasped her wrist, "You see!" he insisted barking out the word in an exclamation of fury. "I am like a magnet for this, this world was peaceful, blissful, beautiful every other time I have been here. Now as _this_ me, I only have to step foot onto it and it has been transformed into an abomination, and I've bought you into it with me!"

Clara tried to reassure him, to say she was fine when she heard the distinctive sound of spears being sharpened and glanced around to see that the assembled camp was in action, forming what was undoubtedly a perimeter, nervous tension filling the air with their quick, frantic well practiced movements as she realised that whilst inside the mindscape they had shared, the sky had grown noticeably darker.

"Let me guess, they only come out at night?" this was one of those times when she was dearly hoping she was wrong.

The Doctor's expression of unease wasn't encouraging, "I would need to examine one to be sure but I'd imagine that the damage caused by the extraction of the gland which is so close to the visual cortex has resulted in extreme light sensitivity in the unfortunate creatures that survive such a procedure."

Clara swallowed. "Terrific, like killer brain eating Zombie Grey's needed to be any creepier."

"This is not their fault Oswin!" he all but snarled at her, wrongly assuming that her attempt at levity was in some way disrespectful rather than a genuine attempt to deflect her sudden overwhelming fear.

"No. It's humans!" Clara bit back. "I get that, but unless you can tell me you can do something for these poor unfortunate creatures to restore them, then I would rather not think of them as anything other than monsters when our friends here start trying to kill before they get in and start munching."

The Doctor looked pained. "No I can't restore them, synthesising the gland would be too difficult as the humans have no doubt already determined or they would have done it themselves by now, much simpler than having to keep the Grey's like some sort of cattle. And even if I could, restoring them would be impossible, their brains have deteriorated too far, the damage would be irreparable, and if I did, they would never survive the psychological trauma of _this_." He waved at the chaos beginning around them as the sun pitched ever further towards the horizon.

"We should get back to the TARDIS." He grasped her arm, all but trying to drag her with him, Clara dug her heels in.

"No." She hissed in disbelief. "You are not abandoning these people. They need help."

The Doctor glanced around. "And what would you have me do Clara? Pick up a spear and strike down at the poor creatures coming at us in the dark?"

Clara didn't know what to say. "You can fix this." She insisted.

"Not from here." He muttered, his fingers tightening around her wrist again as he tugged her sharply enough that she had no choice but to follow unless she wanted to let him detach her arm from her shoulder.

"Promise me." She pulled against him, staring back torn between not wanting to leave the small camp of Grey's to an assault like the one she didn't want to imagine was coming and knowing the Doctor was right, his place wasn't in the camp, that wasn't how he worked, he needed to be on the human world, weeding out the cause of their self destruction. He glared back at her stubborn refusal. "Promise me that if we get back to the TARDIS you'll try and fix this, to help them." His lips formed a grim line and he pulled her arm sharply, ducking as he did so until she found herself quite unceremoniously over his shoulder as he stalked away from the small camp, no such promise uttered.

"No. Doctor!" she screeched, pounding her fists against his back and wiggling furiously to free herself, but this was another great lie of Time-Lord physiology, he might have looked frailer now but he was stronger than any human being, much stronger than her. He didn't even wobble as he pressed on determinedly towards the safety of his Blue Box. "Don't do this." She pleaded. "Please, promise me you'll at least try."

He reached the doors and they swung inwards, Clara clicked her fingers in desperation her 'unsuitable for the task' human brain flicking out the telepathic command to the TARDIS to close them. The doors swung shut and the Doctor stopped, staring darkly at them, his body coiling with tension as he slowly lowered her back to her feet, entrapping her between him and the TARDIS doors that as he pushed and shoved remained steadfastly closed.

"Ganging up on me are we ladies?" he growled, his Scottish lilt making her wish she was anywhere but between him and the Box. "Figures you'd choose this regeneration to get along with each other."

Clara lifted her hands placatingly, trying to keep some distance between them as he kept his arms either side of her head, not allowing her to leave its confines. "Doctor, this is us helping. You wanted to be what you were. Be the better man. The better man stays and fights even if it seems hopeless."

The Doctor sneered back down at her. "Perhaps that is why the _better_ man has found the need to regenerate twelve times."

"Doctor please." She was beginning to fear that pleading him was like pleading with the howling wind, pointless. "You are better than this. All you need to do is think, remember that man inside you that couldn't bear to see suffering like this, not when he could do something to make it better. The man who'd argue with his own species about their non-interference policies until they locked him away and banished him from his own home. If nothing else, think of the man that would want the challenge, the puzzle, something that only his extraordinary mind could find a way to fix."

His arms bent slightly and he dropped one, giving her a way out, she didn't take it, staying resolutely where she was and feeling the smallest flicker of hope beginning.

"I'll be putting you at risk." He admitted, clearly giving her argument some consideration.

Clara raised a hand to his cheek, his eyes closing briefly at the gesture. "Anything worth doing involves some risk. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth very much."

"You would ask me to risk the only things in my life that mean anything to me, for them?"

"Yes." She insisted. "Because you're the Doctor, that's what you do, that's why you have something to risk in the first place."

He nodded solemnly, resting his palm against her hand as it lay over his cheek, before drawing it down to press a kiss to the back of it. "I promise only to try Owsin."

Clara felt her heart break for this impossible man as he was forced to live with the shadow of who he had been looming large over him. "That's all you can do, that's all you've ever done."


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor was not kind. That was what Madame Vastra had told her once. Not _her_ exactly either an echo, but either way the message had stuck, but somehow it had never rung so true as it did right now.

"Doctor." She grasped his wrist, trying to get him to reconsider and hold his hand off the controls a minute longer. "Is this really the message you want to send to the Universe, that _this_ is the way the Doctor deals with those who stand against him now?"

The Doctors fingers flexed and he drew back his hand, giving her his full attention and looking dangerously close to striking her, merely for having the nerve to stand in front of him now. "You asked me to involve myself, to risk myself, my TARDIS and you. I have. Now you want to stand here and argue my methods?"

Clara swallowed, she was pushing him too hard, too fast. "One day you'll regret this moment." The shadow of other regrets, other choices they'd both made lay heavy between them.

"One day isn't now." He bit back surprisingly short sighted for him. "Right now, this is the solution I choose. The solution I want." He admitted and Clara dropped her hand from his wrist.

"All right." She stepped away from the console. She wasn't his mother, wasn't his conscience. She was his friend and sometimes a friend had to let you make your own mistakes, for the sake of that friendship. "But you do this alone." She'd stopped him pressing a big red button once before, appealed to his better nature and he'd listened, but not this time. It had taken him 400 years of regrets to reverse that decision, to know he was better than it, and three of him to realise how. This time it was just her and his newly broken self. There would be other times, other battles with him, but this one she had lost and it broke her heart.

He pressed the button and she swiped at the tears that fell, mirroring the fall she knew was happening outside. The human factories where they committed their despicable acts of barbarism would be igniting with their vast cooling towers disabled permanently. The people inside would be running, screaming, dying. They wouldn't get far, the Doctor had made it clear, anyone involved in this atrocity was to be punished. The aerosolised version of the chemicals this god forsaken place made would be inhaled by everyone within a two mile radius of the inevitable explosion and the poisonous smog that would envelope it. He'd promised it would be swift.

Clara turned away, her back to him as he bought forward the transmitter, standing squarely before it and flicking the switch which would beam his image right across the Tri-Galactic. "I am the Doctor. I have a message for the humans that believe that there is no one left to hold them accountable. No one left to stop their acts of barbarism. I am left. I am here and I stand silent in my affections for your species no more. You are given notice, consider this my last and only warning."

He fell silent and only then did she turn to watch him add the video stream of just what atrocities had been committed here and his swift, brutal action taken in retribution, placing it all on a transmission loop that would take years to break.

"No more hiding." He bit off. "This is my way. There are no more free passes, no more second chances." Those words she remembered other versions of him, killed in battle or fresh from the Time War echoing them, it seemed regenerating after a battle with the Dalek's always bought out the worst in him. Perhaps the real reason he kept the humans around him was as a reminder, not to let himself become like us, something to pull him back from the breach time and time again because it was becoming apparent that it was just in his nature to slip back into it.

Clara gave him a sad look but didn't argue. "Until your way changes." She acknowledged. "Or _you_ do again."

"Don't hold your breath." He snarled pointing his sonic at the console and fixing his transmission in place. His warning to the Universe that a new Doctor was in.

Clara in her heart knew what the humans had done here was wrong, terrible, it had to be stopped and whilst she could never condone his actions now, the lives he had taken, but he had at least tried to reason with them, tried to be the 'old' him. But they hadn't even heard of the Doctor, of the Time-lords, they hadn't heeded his warnings thinking him nothing more than a mad man with a box and ultimately they hadn't cared what they were doing to a planet full of primitives. Apparently all his attempts to simply disappear in his past life had worked a little too well and he was paying for that hubris now.

"What about the Grey's?" she questioned, hating that her voice sounded hoarse around the lump in her throat.

The Doctor answered, she really hadn't been sure he would. "The planetary defences I've erected should be sufficient, the sky trenches worked well enough for my people, they will effectively keep any human life from stepping foot on the planet below."

Clara hesitated. "And the Grey's that were already... damaged?"

The Doctor drew his fingers across his brow, seemingly tired now the blistering rage which had fuelled his actions was fading. "The Grey's on the planet will take care of it in their own time, those left in that state do not survive long lobotomised as they are. They will die off of their own accord shortly and life on the planet will slowly return to normal."

Clara didn't know what look she bore but clearly it offended him, he stalked forwards grasping her face and searing her with the intensity of his rage, but she wasn't as fooled as she would have been a few weeks ago, she saw the pain there, the hurt it masked. His fingers gripped into her delicate skin and she stared back at him, unflinching.

"You asked me to risk everything. I did. I took a calculated risk. This was as far as it let me go."

It was cold and heartless. But it was something from him, pretending this didn't bother him, when she'd seen his rage on the Grey's behalf and his utter disappointment with the human race that had fuelled it.

"I know." She admitted and his eyes scanned her face as if looking for a trick, or a trap, something that would come with a verbal lashing. But what would be the point, he had done what he felt he needed to, and who was she to argue? She was human, she didn't get a say today, not after what her species had been doing here.

"Don't look at me like that." He whispered, his voice almost pleading and Clara looked away, but his hands didn't relinquish her face as she felt tears spill. It wasn't fair, wasn't neat, perhaps that was his purpose this time, to face the monsters that were out there that his predecessor had tried to ignore. This wasn't a Doctor that could merely sit on a cloud and watch the world go by. But Clara new his transmitted warning was just the beginning, if he involved himself now then the enemy had better damn well be sure they were ready for the consequences, because this Doctor wouldn't stop, couldn't. And maybe that was what the Universe needed sometimes, a Doctor that would damn his soul to make the hard choice, the unpleasant choice, a choice that would end a war for good rather than postpone it for a later battle.

"Clara." His voice broke over the word and she couldn't look at him, accepting it in her head and seeing the metaphorical blood on his hands were two very different things. The feel of his lips over hers were a shock as he crushed her to him, his arms sliding around her face and drawing her closer. Clara inhaled sharply as his lips withdrew as quickly as they had come and she stared back at him wide eyed, her breath coming in short sharp bursts as she tried to make sense of the thoughts swirling through her, the sensations even the barest touch from him could elicit which were dancing through her now.

Her hand came up almost unbidden and she felt the sting of her palm as it connected soundly with his face and he turned his head back, eyes raging again but the pain radiating from them was so clear to her now as he seemed to struggle for words, she was certain non of them would be an apology.

"How dare you." She bit out and his eye twitched, but Clara was just getting warmed up. "I've waited for you, loved you!" she admitted her voice breaking over the admission and she injected steel into it. "And you choose now... in the midst of _this_." Her voice should have been shrill over that last, she wanted it to be, but instead it was coming out a hoarse whisper as she indicated the mess all around them, his dark message playing out for all to see.

"I can barely stand to be around you right now, and it hurts just seeing you and not seeing him, not even recognising him in the man you are right now. But I'm still here because God help me I still love you." She pointed sharply at his chest, feeling his hearts pounding beneath, "Because in spite of all this, you are you, and you always will be, and you deserve to be loved." And she meant it, had demanded that very thing of his people through a crack in the very fabric of the Universe, "But if you ever do that again." She bit out, the threat heavy between them and she watched it creep in behind his eyes adding to the pain that was already lodged there.

She turned away, putting her back to him as she retraced their steps to the TARDIS.

"Do you think you are the only one that has loved." He called out, his voice blistering her with the raw intensity in it. Clara stopped, but she couldn't look back. "Do you think I wanted to die, to leave you, to turn into something unknowable! But this is what I am." He had closed the distance and she felt his hands grasp her arms firmly, stopping her from simply stalking away. "Do you know what it cost him to send you away, twice?"

Clara dropped her head feeling his chest slide against her back as he drew her closer into him with all the words she'd longed to hear from _her_ Doctor. But instead it was this broken version that was professing them, this man that desperately needed her put her love aside and be a friend willing to help him no matter the cost to her; because she feared her love wouldn't survive this version of him, but she needed her friendship to, for his sake.

"Please." She whispered feeling tears lace her voice. "Not here. Not with that God forsaken message playing out and declaring you as something less then I know you can be." She felt him crumple slightly with that and his hands released her.

Clara didn't hesitate, her legs carried her at a sprint to the TARDIS which opened for her without hesitation, laying corridors ahead that led straight to her room, she slammed the door hard and heard the distinctive sound of locks sliding into place, although whether the TARDIS was doing it to keep her in, or the Doctor out she wasn't sure. Neither did she particularly care in that moment, so long as she was alone. She didn't make the bed, just slid down the wall her face in her hands and succumbed to the tears that had threatened to come since she'd watched the man she'd loved become someone else.

Clara slept, her dreams fitful and she woke bleary eyed with a headache feeling less rested than when she'd entered. Shakily she stood, her prone position on the floor against the cool metal wall where she knew she'd fallen asleep had been transformed into a small padded alcove from which a distinct warmth was emanating. Clara blinked, reaching out a hand to stroke the TARDIS wall with a fondness she never imagined she might feel for the sentient machine.

"Thank you." She sighed, "But you don't have to worry, I'm not leaving. I know that he needs someone who loves him enough to try and stop him right now. I guess this time around that's me." The TARDIS gave a distinctive hum and those telepathic circuits which didn't work well with a human brain seemed to transmit the Old Girls gratitude just fine.

Hesitantly Clara made her way out of her room, trusting the TARDIS to take her where she needed to go, she found him in the library, his legs hanging out over a chintzy arm chair, for a moment she assumed he was merely reading, but as she approached quietly she became aware of his gentle breathing. Clara stood over him, taking in the rare sight of the Time-Lord sleeping; he looked so peaceful like this, those sad, pain-filled, furious eyes at rest, his face softened and the new lines receding with relaxation. Clara sighed, clearly now wasn't the time to have another one of their tense conversations, if he was sleeping then he needed to rest. With slow gentle movements she'd used on the Maitland kids more than once, she retrieved a blanket from another chair and laid it gently over him.

The library was vast and desperately beautiful as she swept her hands across the spines of books entire civilizations would have gone to war over, just to glimpse. A terrifying memory of being chased through here by a burnt and horribly transformed version of herself and the Doctor hit and she closed her eyes, trying to banish it. This was why memories from alternate futures needed to stay buried, they could screw with your reality too much. Instead she headed for a book she only half remembered, one that was held inside a glass case. The exquisite leather and gold filigree design of the binding ran beneath her fingers and she inhaled the scent of the pages, the history it held. The TARDIS would have removed this book if it didn't want her to read it... the only reason she likely hadn't the last time was because she'd been preoccupied with the small matter of keeping her exploding engines contained and redirecting the zombie monsters from them.

The book lifted from its position easily and Clara carried it carefully back to the small sofa opposite the Doctor's sleeping form, settling in with her legs tucked underneath her she placed the tome on her lap and with care she turned the pages of the History of the Time War.

Clara was so absorbed with her reading that it took her some time to realise that the prickling sensation on the back of her neck meant she was being watched; her eyes lifted and she froze, seeing his cool blue ones fixed on her, his chin propped on his arm clearly he'd been that way for some time. Clara met his gaze just long enough to let him know that she knew, before she returned her attention to the book.

"How long have you been awake." She asked after a full ten minutes of silence had spread between them.

"A while." Came his response and she flicked her eyes to him again, noticing that he was sat upright now, his hands pressed together over his chest as he eased back, seemingly relaxed. "You were somewhat entranced by that bit of light reading you seem to have picked up."

Clara felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips and she tried not to let him see it. "I figured if I wasn't allowed to read it, it wouldn't have been on display."

The Doctor made a sound like a 'hurumph' and she continued, "besides it wouldn't be the first time this particular book has presented itself to me."

"No I suppose not." He admitted and she couldn't stop her eyes from being drawn back to him as he seemed to be examining the backs of his own hands, his fingers, she wondered what it would feel like to not even recognise your own hands.

There was no discussion, no awkward conversation as he rose and selected a book of his own, he lowered himself into the empty seat beside her and she shifted fractionally to accommodate him, trying to ignore the gentle warmth that she could feel radiating from the point where the legs brushed. He placed his own book on his lap, retrieved a pair of square delicately rimmed silver spectacles she'd not seen him use before from within his breast pocket and begin to read alongside her in a companionable silence at a fraction of the speed she knew he could.

There were things heavy between them, she wasn't fool enough to think they had gone away, and she knew there were conversations in the future they would need to have, but right now, it was just nice to have this after the darkness on the planet, to know that if nothing else she was able to help give him some measure of peace.


	6. Chapter 6

He was going out whilst she was asleep. Clara came to that disturbing conclusion as the claxons sounded and she shot out of bed, no sense of where, what or when she was, landing with a distinct thump on the floor in a tangle of sheets as she flailed trying to free herself from her assailant.

When nothing attacked and the claxon shut off as abruptly as it had sounded out she stood, clutching the covers to her and darting out into the corridors until she found herself in the control room. Which was unsettling, no matter how many times it happened, especially when you were heading for the Doctor's room. Yes he had one, apparently. Not that he ever seemed to sleep in it.

Blinking herself awake Clara approached the console, stifling a yawn as she pulled the monitor towards her. It was a video of the Doctor, clearly taken without his knowledge. So the TARDIS was spying on him. Wonderful and just that little bit creepy. Text and information flowed across the screen as she scrolled with her finger, noting the dates and most importantly the time stamps, relative to them as they were inside the TARDIS anyway. He'd been landing on planets in the dead of night (or at least when she was sound asleep), sneaking about like some sort of criminal.

Clara felt her hand go to her hip and she tried to lower it, along with the twisted expression her mouth had formed. "How long." She questioned Old Blue and got a digital display, two weeks, relative to their linear time on board since the planet of the Greys. "He won't like you _telling_ on him." Clara sighed, dropping her head to the console and wondering what time it was if that wasn't a moot point inside a time machine, but she was knackered. The console bleeped forlornly and Clara sighed, patting the edge from her head down position. "No I won't tell him." She sighed. "Is he safe?" It was a question she was dreading and Clara lifted her head to see the console display the readings she needed, normal atmosphere, no alien life forms, no unusual environmental activity, and the area of space they were in was relatively uninhabited.

"Huh." Clara managed. "What's he doing here?" It didn't occur to her that talking to a machine was a strange thing to be doing, especially not because this particular machine answered only when she felt like it. The data entry for the planet appeared and Clara felt a small flutter of excitement as she realised it experienced gravity eddies which made astounding upward flowing waterfalls that seemed to sing with the sound of the water hitting the upper atmosphere.

Clara stared at the console that hand rising to her hip again. "Ok, I'm sleep deprived. Explain why this required claxons and the temporary heart failure?"

The TARDIS was silent. "Did you get me up just to bitch about him?"

The console whirred slightly and a picture of _her_ appeared on the screen. Clara stared at herself, recalling a particularly snide conversation she'd had with Old Blue where she'd taken her face and wondering if this was a slide back to form for her. "Seriously, I got maybe three hours tonight... I need some help here."

The TARDIS flashed her picture and then the waterfalls. Then the images of beautiful scenery from all the other planets he'd been sneaking out to lately and Clara inched forward her mouth falling open slightly in wonder. Ice fjords, diamond lakes, singing fountains that rose to the sky, a planet where you could _see_ sound. Clara blinked, "these planets, there all... beautiful." Ok so she was slow, she could practically hear the TARDIS rolling her eyes at her as she interspersed each one with her image and the video of the Doctor sneaking out, instruments and camera in hand.

"He's scouting planets for us to visit, looking for safe... and beautiful. No zombies."

Clara clutched the blanket tighter around her and felt a small thrill of warmth that she knew she had no right to feel, particularly not when the TARDIS was clearly worried about this behaviour. Perhaps she should be too, but she couldn't seem to raise the same concern. "Look. Maybe he just needs a holiday, some time away from all the horrors in the Universe. Maybe this will be good for him, grant him some perspective, because there's a lot of bad out there but look at this..." she pointed to the dancing trees of Barratil, "there's some incredibly good things too."

The outside TARDIS door banged as a fist unmistakably hit it and a cross Scottish voice sounded out. "Oy, let me in you blasted Old Cow!"

Clara didn't have a chance to worry as a light enveloped her and she felt yanked from her bellybutton, before she was deposited back in her bedroom. She hadn't even realised the TARDIS could teleport people; apparently it wasn't something she did often, unless she was trying to hide something, or someone from the Doctor. Mind you, if he'd reverted to calling her 'Old Cow', clearly the relationship between man and his box had deteriorated, but then they'd been together over a millennia, clearly they were overdue for a stonking great row.

Clara felt oddly calmed by this new development and slipped back into the bed with a soft sigh. The bed promptly vanished and she hit the floor for the second time that night.

"Oh don't be like that." She muttered, rubbing her ass which was certainly taking a bruising tonight. "If you don't like where he's going, do what you usually do... redirect him." She lay back on the metal floor, pulling the blanket around her, too tired to care.

The silence was deafening and Clara felt her skills at interpreting the slight telepathic hum that occasionally reached out to her were increasing. The TARDIS _had_ tried that already. "He blocked the autopilot didn't he." Clara nodded knowing it to be true. "Right. Well let's hope he didn't get any wires crossed, it wasn't that long ago he tried to fix the toaster, they really aren't supposed to use microwaves by the way." Clara smirked at the cross sound the walls emitted before a much smaller, and less comfortable looking bed appeared across the room.

Clara got up slowly and made her way over to it, reaching out she touched the edge nervously, it stayed; she sat down cautiously, it still stayed and she let out a sigh as her head hit the lumpy pillow. "Look Blue. Let him traipse about looking for a bit of peace and quiet. He's the Doctor, knowing him trouble will find him soon enough." The TARDIS presence vanished and Clara realised that maybe half the Doctor's issues were caused by the fact that his favourite Box was the one that couldn't stay still.

* * *

"Oswin." He ventured quietly and Clara looked up, he still hadn't mentioned his late night excursions, despite the TARDIS trying to spoil it every few minutes for him by dropping massive hints that she was choosing to remain deliberately oblivious too in the Doctor's presence.

"Yes." She quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting. Wondering which of the planets he'd racked up he might decide on, certain he'd been waiting for the right moment to spring it on her.

"There's somewhere I'd like us to..." The sound of the TARDIS phone interrupted and Clara glanced in its direction, he hadn't got the faintest idea of how to reroute it through the main console, last time he'd tried he'd deleted half the rooms on the ship, the TARDIS had taken days to restore them all; the bathroom in particular had been an issue, so it remained outside the front door. His irritation was clear, his hands gripped the console and she heard him mutter something that sounded like a curse.

Clara held up her index finger to him. "Hold that thought." She hurried across to the door and wrenched it open, trying not to notice the stars and vastness of empty space outside as she reached over and lifted the receiver, it hadn't been so long ago she'd found herself clinging to the side of this very box with those same stars and empty space racing by, threatening to freeze her solid.

"Hello you've reached the TARDIS, the Doctors really not in a chatty mood right now, if it's not life and death, better to call again later."

"Hi and don't you sound just delightful." A brash male very all-American accent hit her and she instantly felt a grin forming. "But I really do need to speak to the Doctor. Is he about, tell him it's Captain Jack."

Clara knew Captain Jack, or rather knew _of_ him. A little too much probably, the face of Boe, irony really knew no boundaries it seemed. But what she did know was that when he called, it usually meant the Universe was ending. Or the Earth. Neither of which sounded like a party.

"Captain." Clara began, glancing back inside and seeing the Doctor stalking around the console his hands jammed in his pockets, muttering to himself. "Like I said now really isn't the best time." He'd spent weeks, literally planning this, he wasn't going to be pleased with the disruption, and she just as much as him needed a holiday.

"Look Miss." Jack started and she could hear his tone change from jovial to something all together more effective as he started to take her to task half a Universe away.

"No! You look." Clara snapped. "He's coming off the back of a bad regeneration. Things are... different right now, he's not got all the kinks out yet." She paused. "You know about his regenerations yes?"

She could practically hear him gritting his teeth down the line at her. "Yes I know and if you could just put him on the phone..."

"You're not getting it." Clara hissed, "He's really not the guy you want wading into an apocalypse right now. I assume that's why you're calling?" She hated talking about the Doctor like this, but if she had to let him schedule in a little rest and relaxation every now and again to keep him sane so be it.

"Look Ma'am." Ooh she'd gone from Miss to Ma'am, she felt oddly offended. "I don't care if he's come back with two heads and scissors for hands. He's the Doctor, he always is. And right now I have a problem that really won't wait for him to reacquaint himself with... _himself_." He muttered clearly feeling a little ridiculous saying that, but she thought he'd made his point.

"And if he says no?"

The pause on the line was pregnant. "He's _that_ different?" Jack asked sounding hesitant finally some of her tension was bleeding through the light years between them.

Clara sighed, it wasn't Captain Jack's fault and she was doing what she'd swore she wouldn't, playing the overprotective mother card. "Fine, look I'll talk to him, but if Old Blue does materialise don't judge him too harshly, from his perspective it's been about 1000 years since he last saw you." She admitted, judging the 400 years that had passed since Ten and the 600 he'd spent on Trenzalore.

"Wow, long time." She heard the surprise in his voice and something else, pity, from him she could accept that, after all he'd know what that sort of time could do to a man. "And you'd know when he last saw me how?" he queried.

Clara sighed, wishing she could smirk and just chuckle the word 'spoilers' at him like River would, but she couldn't summon the humour past the sinking feeling in her gut, but she had to have faith in the Doctor again, and if he failed, then she'd just to have more faith the next time, she wouldn't give up on him. Still better to be safe than sorry she mused.

"If there's a judgement call to be made Jack, he's not the one to make it this time, am I clear."

"Crystal. You got a name to go with that pessimism sweetheart?"

"He calls me Oswin."

"Splendid Oswin, I take it he's not coming to the phone?"

Clara glanced back to see the Doctor leaning arms folded leaning against the console, his brow heavy, his entire body tense with what she knew to be frustration. Cranked up like that he'd tell Jack where to shove it.

"Like I said, not a good time. Fortunately for you we're in a time machine. Tell me when and where and I'll get back to you when he's in a more accommodating mood."

"Earth, Cardiff, Torchwood's new HQ, 4th July 2014, it's 10:30am and Units on its way to huff and puff and blow the doors down, if he's not here by then, we all fall down."

"Gotcha. Nice chatting Jack, see you soon, oh and thanks by the way."

"For what?" he snapped, sounding stressed, clearly there was stuff going on down there.

"That vortex manipulator, really came in handy. Remind me to give it back to you sometime." Clara smirked hearing the question in his voice as she put the phone down on him and swung back inside the TARDIS clapping her hands together generating excitement and banishing that conversation to the back of her mind for now.

"So, you were saying, something about someplace you wanted to show me?" her grin was wide and she watched him deliberately glance between her and the phone.

"You not going to tell me who that was?" there was a warning to the tone he was using and she kept her smile in place.

"Fun thing about a time machine. Nothing's urgent. It'll keep. How about Berratil. Dancing trees really sounds like something special."

His eyes widened and he turned accusingly at the TARDIS, but not in the least bit surprised that she'd tattled on him clearly. He shook his head in what was clearly defeat. "I think I preferred it when you two where fighting."

Clara smirked sliding up beside him and patting his arm lightly. "Of course you did, now you're outnumbered and definitely outmanoeuvred."

He gave her a soft smile that she chose to bank for a rainy day, somewhere in her 'good things' memories. "Fine," he muttered, "but since I put all the leg work in, I get to pick the place."

Clara pretended to pout, not caring in the least where of the wonderful worlds he scouted he did choose, but she had to exercise some control if nothing else just to wind him up. "You're the boss." She half saluted him and he growled something before grabbing the wobbly lever and throwing them into the vortex, she hit the stabiliser and readjusted the giro quickly, pretending not to notice him pointedly ignore her correction.

"But it's going to be Berratil." She grinned, she couldn't help it and she saw his answering smirk, ladies choice always won out in the end. They'd have their vacation, he'd unwind and remind himself and her that the Universe wasn't out to get them... then they'd go back to Earth and undo all that good work when the Universe no doubt set out to prove just how wrong that assertion was.

Which was all great, except for the fact that Clara had forgotten one very important thing... the TARDIS really was a bitch and she'd clearly found a way around the Doctor's no doubt shoddy job of disabling the autopilot.

Because as they strode out arm in arm eager to banish the darker side of life for a few wonderful days of peace she was met with an expectant, rather grumpy looking group of people. Several of whom she thought she recognised as Martha Jones, Mickey Smith and of course...

"You're late." His brash accent hadn't improved any in person and he strode forward arms crossed, old style military jacket swishing, staring daggers at _her_... not the Doctor she noted.

"Oh trust me, you have no idea how early we are." She quipped, eyes wide feeling the Doctor tense beside her and drop her arm.

"So, not Barratil then." The Doctor sighed. "Pity. I'm bored of Earth." Then he turned around and strode back into the TARDIS without so much as a word to the rest of them. "Oswin, inside!" he bellowed the blue doors slamming behind him with finality.


	7. Chapter 7

Clara stood blinking at the confused and somewhat angry faces of the Jones' in front of her, embarrassed and slightly mortified that he lacked in the most basic of manners. He hadn't even looked at them.

"That's not the Doctor." Martha Jones declared; on a different occasion Clara might have been thrilled to meet her and the husband. But right now, she was just pissed, only she couldn't decide who with most, the Box or the man inside it.

"Oh trust me its him!" Clara muttered. "Unfortunately he isn't always a charmer. Especially not when his TARDIS declares mutiny." She turned accusingly hands on her hips to stare at the Blue Box, she felt it stare right back. "Oh don't you give me that you Old Cow. One holiday, would it have killed you to give him that? He might be a crap engineer this time round but he disabled that autopilot for a reason, the least you could have done was pretend to let it stick for a few days."

"Seems like the same old Doctor to me. Never did like mixing it up with the 'exes'." Mickey snapped looking a lot tougher and older than the one that flittered though Clara's memory.

Jack sidled up beside her she expected to see the same anger the other two former companions were failing to hide, instead he wore the biggest grin and he was aiming it straight at her, his arms enveloped her and she almost inhaled him as he planted the biggest kiss on her lips, his eyes flashing with delight as he drew away slowly, clearly savouring it. "I knew I'd recognised that name, accents a little different now, but that face..." he grasped her face and kissed each cheek with a little too much enthusiasm. "Unmistakeable."

Clara held her hands up warding him off. "Easy. Down boy." She leant back, but he wasn't releasing the hold he had around her waist.

"Oswin Oswald of the Starship Alaska right? Don't tell me you don't remember Agent Jack?" he was giving her 'come to bed eyes', but all Clara could do was stare back, the unpleasant sensation of memories from another her stirring from where they had safely integrated and stayed buried when the Doctor had pulled her out of his time stream.

Jack turned back towards his bemused looking colleagues, a dark haired women with a strong welsh accent was the first to respond. "Oh for heaven's sake Jack, give the girl a minute, you're not _that_ memorable."

"Oh trust me Gwen, Oswin and I had a memorable time, back when I was still just a mortal man of course, working for the Time Agency in the 51st Century." he smirked back at her like a secret shared between them and Clara felt her face whiten with the sudden onslaught of another life, another time, of hot sweaty bodies, laughter... and guns. "She asked me to show her the stars... well we got about as far as Orion's belt." He let out a boisterous laugh, dropping his arm over her shoulder and tugging her in close to his well defined chest.

"Oswin, are you alright?" Martha stepped forward, her hand out. "Jack, she's not alright, grab her." Clara hadn't even realised her knees has gone from under her as Jack caught her fast, lowering her to the floor gracefully his hands cradling her face.

"Oswin. Oswin can you hear me?" Jacks voice floated in and out, the fleeting pleasant memories and rush of lust her former self had passed, skipped right through to the single defining moment in her life, to the Daleks... they had carved her up, filled her full of hate and thrown her in a tin can.

"Eggs."

"Did she just say eggs?" Gwen voiced everyone's question, coming to kneel down beside her, the presence of so many around her, human hands touching her forced hate to surge through her strangling all reason.

"Doctor!" Martha shouted. "We need you, Oswin's in trouble!" Clara felt a hand against her neck and she tried to strain away from it but her muscles weren't under her own control. "Pulse is thready, I think she's seizing, God jack what did you do?"

"Nothing." Jack spluttered, his hands strong against her shoulders as he pinned her.

"Move!" the TARDIS doors banged open and Clara gasped for air, struggling against the agony raging inside of her, but now it had a focus as she felt _him_ beside her as he pushed the others out the way.

"Eggs." She heard herself say.

Strong firm hands took her face. "Clara." Her name, her actual name... only she wasn't Clara, she was Oswin... only she wasn't Oswin she was...

"Eggs... Exterm,"

"No Clara. Stop this."

"Exterm...inate."

"No!" his roar was primal and it lit something dark inside of her "Fight it! You are Clara Oswald, you are human!" The Doctors voice reached her and her hand flew up as she opened her eyes, looking into the unfamiliar steel ones as her hand closed around the windpipe of her Predator the Doctor. Feeble instruments these appendages she assessed, but they would do.

"I am Dalek!" Her voice screeched into the face of her greatest enemy, drawing strength from the hate as she pushed up, bringing her second hand around his throat and squeezing hard.

"Oh my God! Grab her." Gwen barked and she felt hands take her, trying to pull her off the Doctor.

"Trying!" Mickey snarled, his arm went around her throat and she lashed out with an elbow smiling in satisfaction as she felt it connect with a crunch and heard an answering grunt of pain.

"Get off her, let her go!" the Doctor rasped struggling for breath, the hands fell away and she turned her full attention on him. "Exterminate!" she screamed their faces inches apart as he tried to prise her hands loose with success as he threw them aside. His grip on her face intensified and she felt his mind pierce hers like a weapon.

"That's it good girl, let me in Clara, I can stop the pain, I can stop the Dalek. Let me in." Clara let out a sob that was entirely her as she felt him inside her mind, breaking her free of the memory for the barest of moments.

"Doctor." She breathed.

"Fight it. You did before, you are Clara Oswald, you are human, you fought the Daleks and you won." His words rattled through her very being, alighting more memories, other battles, other hers, fighting dying... winning.

"I... am... human." She bit out.

"That's it, cast aside her memory, she is not all of you. Just an echo one in thousands of voices. Let that Oswin go." She heard him with her ears and her mind, saw as he held the wall up between her and the memories of the Dalek conversion her alternate self had experienced. Clara pressed forward, helping him hold the wall. _'Visualise it Clara, wall this part of you up.' _

Clara obeyed, hearing the command strike to her very core as she began to painstakingly layer one brick after another around the vision of herself entombed in the Dalek cage, feeling the Doctor slip away as she focused on the task until her breathing evened and she felt the hate recede. She was Clara Oswald, she was human, she fought the Daleks and she was winning.

The Doctor pulled out of her mind gently and cradled her form as he lowered her to the floor, checking her breathing, slow and steady, the rhythmic pounding of her heart telling him she would recover, as he could still feel her quietly building that wall even now, deep into unconsciousness.

"What the hell was that?" Jack's brash voice declared and the Doctor felt a hand on his shoulder demandingly as he was forced to turn and face the man that had so nearly killed his precious Clara.

"You!" He snarled, feeling his fingers curl as he stood, leaving her body to the care of Dr Jones. He got right up in Jack's face, his very skin crawling at the wrongness of the man, he yearned to reach out and right it, to throw him into the void and stop the swirling maelstrom of paradox his very existence created. He felt his hands curl around the other mans coat, dragging him in and startling his old friend enough to let him.

"You could have killed her." The Doctor barked.

"Hey easy now." Gwen stood slowly, her voice a soothing balm as she eased closer to them, her hands up, but the Doctor knew it wouldn't take much to have her reaching for her weapon. "Now Jack was an ass, yes, but I can't see a damn thing he did wrong except recognising a girl, and then locking lips with her... but aside from that."

The Doctor felt the air leave him, but not the rage. He longed to tear into something, anything for the pain those monsters had unleashed inside of her mind, the horror of the conversion she had been forced to re-experience. His Clara. All for the sake of something this fool said.

"Hey Doc, you're the one that left her out here!" Jack bit back shrugging him off, his finger pointing at his chest accusingly. "And she said her name was Oswin. I never forget a face, not even after the years between the man I was then and now. And definitely not _that_ night." The Doctor felt jealousy and guilt lash him with equal measure and he turned away from the idiot before he felt the urge to act on either, staring instead at her finally peaceful face, his mind touching hers briefly, the wall was constructed, she'd need to sleep now.

"She saved my life." Jack admitted. "My mortal life; which was kind of a bigger deal back then, almost dying."

"Of course she did." The Doctor snarled, feeling his rage switch to the Universe's perverse sense of humour when it came to this new version of him. "Because you have and will save my life. If you didn't exist, then I might not."

"I'm confused." Mickey was staring hard at him, arms crossed, a million miles from the teenager with no ambition or future who'd been terrified of a mad man in a box running away with his girl. "Is she Oswin, or is she Clara? Is she human... or Dalek?"

The Doctor sighed, rubbing his temples, the mental battle he'd waged partly on her behalf had been taxing and he felt prickles of pain radiating throughout him from the exertion. "She is my Impossible Girl. And that means that this unfortunate and utterly extraordinary girl ripped herself apart thousands of times to scatter herself along my time-stream and save all of me... every moment of my many lives. Every death I _could_ have experienced. Every time the Great Intelligence interfered in its infernal quest to unmake me. She but my entire life back together, made sure all of it happened as it was supposed to."

"Then why'd she call herself Oswin?" Gwen argued.

"Because I called her that. It was a foolish old man's inability to accept his new life an attempt to claim something new for himself. I gave no thought at all to the memories that name might stir in her, the danger it could present." For that he knew he would never be able to apologise enough, no words would ever undo the damage he might have wrought inside her psyche.

"Danger's one word for it. She'd have killed you given half the chance." Gwen pointed out, coming to stand beside Jack who was looking thoroughly unnerved, which was something he supposed.

"Same old Doctor then." Martha snapped, "Causing damage to everyone around him."

The Doctor glared down at the young woman who had grown bitter from her experiences with him with a pang of regret which was swiftly squashed by the admiration that he'd helped make her into something stronger, better even. "Yes well, that time-line rewriting time-line was also erased when I didn't die at Trenzalore, but paradoxes are fun like that. They never seem to get the memo, technically the echo's of her shouldn't still exist, but they do out there somewhere in the stars, waiting to save me and by association anyone else who ever saved me."

"So she remembers... those other lives?" Jack queried and the Doctor banked that look, whatever had happened between Jack and Oswin, it wasn't going to repeat with Clara, he'd make damn sure of that.

But the question he posed caused the Doctor to roll his eyes in exasperation. "No, not always. A person would go mad." He gave them all a look unable to believe they couldn't grasp that concept, and saw blank looks in return, irritation bubbled; Clara never irritated him like this, had they always been this slow? "When I pulled her from the time-stream the memory of the echoes re-integrated, she did what any sane person would do, she buried them. Every now and again something useful will slip out. For example she seems to have kept one of several echo's that existed on Gallifrey to help my first incarnation relatively close to the top, most likely because I forced her to dredge that up too when I forgot how to fly the damn TARDIS momentarily." Stupid old man he cussed himself internally.

"She was on Gallifrey?" Jack asked looking quietly surprised by his nonchalance at the admission and the Doctor took a moment to appreciate that from Jack's perspective he'd last seen him as a man without a home, a man without hope. A Doctor struggling to accept his own impending death and raging at the Universe with petty acts of time manipulation for his own gains.

"Will she be ok?" Martha asked her hand gently hovering over Clara's hair soothingly, her instinct to care for another still strong he noticed, even despite his rather more damaging influences.

"I expect so." The Doctor admitted, trying not to let the thought that she wouldn't be enter his mind, "She's much stronger than she looks. Even just an echo of what she was managed to resist a full Dalek conversion. The memory of it was just something of a shock to her system. She'll sleep, bury it deeper and be right as rain when she wakes up."

"Good. Then you can tell us what the hell all that was?" Gwen snapped. "We called for help, you didn't come, so what good are you?"

"You get here after the battle, which we survived, thanks for asking by the way." Mickey continued, his tone matching Gwen's bite for bite. "And take one look at us and stalk back inside of that damn Blue Box of yours. What you too big of a deal to help out your old friends once in a while?"

The Doctor held back the snarl at being barked at by this man-child, but he rather thought the expression made it to his face because Mickey blinked, clearly pausing at the idea of the Doctor's violence. He'd have to watch that, his face running away with him like that without permission. No wonder Clara had known exactly what was going on inside his head.

"Be careful boy." He managed to keep the worst of his venom out of his voice, but now, with Clara still incapacitated on the floor was not the time to let his darker instincts loose for even a moment. "The hero in the pinstripes and the sandshoes that you knew is long dead. _I_ am the Doctor now and I have seen things you wouldn't believe, done things you couldn't imagine. Forgotten more than you will ever know."

"Hasn't made you any less of an arrogant ass. And besides, that wasn't the you I remember, I remember the grumpy northern git with the god complex and the leather jacket, the one that only saved the world in penance for burning his own."

The Doctor cocked his head, his estimation of Mickey going up further. "You all survived whatever catastrophe this was, did you not?" Mickey glowered back at him and Martha placed a gentle hand on his arm as she stood beside him, but the tension didn't dissipate from the small group.

"Yes Doctor, we made it. Just. Unit lost a lot of good men before we managed to break the mind control, fair few beasties got out through the rift they tried to manipulate which proceeded to tear into a whole bunch of innocents out there on the streets. But yes... we made it." Gwen's voice was scathing, she'd never held him in all that high esteem he recalled, clearly her impression of him wasn't improving, but he had to admire her spirit if nothing else.

"Then you didn't need me at all, did you." His voice was just as cutting as he eyed them all dangerously daring them to contradict him as he approached Clara's fallen form and carefully scooped her up into his arms. The brief touch of her mind at the contact was a calming balm amidst the torrent around and within him. She'd want him to stop, to apologise, to help, to regret. But she wasn't awake to see him fail.

"You could have saved lives, ended it before it even started and you know it." Jack argued, but his heart didn't seem to be in it and his eyes were on the girl in his arms, instinctively the Doctor found himself holding her closer. He imagined a girl who had lived and died a thousand times would hold a certain appeal to Jack, clearly she'd held an appeal even before he'd known what she was.

"And you'd have learnt what? Not a damn thing." He accused sweeping his gaze over them all. "Maybe that's what you needed to learn, that the Doctor won't always come, won't always be there to save you. Maybe that is what will save you from yourselves when you next think about sticking your noses in where it doesn't belong." He'd longed to direct that particular rant at UNIT for a long, long time, he was quite certain it would reach their ears now and that would have to do.

"That girl you're cradling, you damn well better thank whatever stars you pray to that you found her and that she chooses to stick around, because she warned me about you." Jack was trying to be blistering, but there was a sadness, a tiredness about him which was new, it took the bite out of it somewhat. "But I didn't listen." He continued undeterred by the Doctors clear disinterest. "I couldn't believe the man I knew could fall so far. But look at you now. You hate everything you used to cherish."

"Everyone's young and foolish once. Humans are and always will be a disappointment, I can be a slow learner sometimes... but trust me I have learnt that lesson now."

"And what is she then, if not human too?" Mickey all but growled.

The Doctor didn't even hesitate. "An exception."

"And how long until you disappoint her Doctor?" Martha, that woman always could see through him.

The Doctor smiled, it wasn't pleasant. "Oh believe me she's already there, but unlike some, she doesn't walk out when the going gets tough."

"No." Jack stepped forward, his fist balled. "This one is in it until she dies... over and over."

"Kindred spirits are you Jack?" The Doctor warned.

"We'll see." His warning was just as stark and the Doctor nodded acknowledging it. "You want to be left alone Doc, we can do that. But when you get tired of sitting up there in your Box you might want to look around and see what's left."

The Doctor held back his snarl and turned his back on them stalking towards the TARDIS doors, he never got near them, he felt the lash of the Old Girls telepathic circuitry, whatever had happened here wasn't over, this had become a fixed point in time that she had now involved him in. She couldn't leave, couldn't even enter the vortex until this time-line had reached its completion. The Doctor wanted to pound on the doors, rip her central conduit apart and pull out the circuitry to find that damned stubborn streak and remove it once and for all. But he couldn't show weakness, not now, couldn't be seen to be anything less than in control. He didn't try the door, knowing there was no point, instead he chose to hesitate. Slowly he turned back, looking to Martha.

"Do you have a med bay here?"

Martha only hesitated a fraction of a second before nodding, nothing of her actual thoughts filtering through to her expression, but Jack's did, his surprise evident.

"You're staying?" Jack asked incredulously.

The Doctor turned, made a show of sniffing the air. "This is a fixed point in time, I can't leave now, not until it's resolved and just by being here I'm involved." He gave Jack his best withering look, not having to struggle hard to find it in this new face, "So how fortunate for you Jack, you get to lecture me some more about the nature of disappointment."

"What's done is done here." Mickey snapped, a gun resting at his hip that he seemed to want to reach for. His instincts hadn't improved the Doctor noted.

"If you say so." The Doctor gave him a cold look. "What would a 2000 year old Time-Lord know of temporal causality compared to a human with barely three decades behind him."

"You think something else is going to happen here?" Gwen stepped forward, waving whatever Mickey was about to snarl away with a sharp gesture.

"Well my TARDIS is time locked. If she isn't moving then events here are still in flux. So it's a good bet that no, we're not done here. So, let's get Clara to the med bay and you can show me this Rift of yours."

Jack stepped forward arms out. "Gwen and Mickey can take you through recent events, patch you through to UNIT. I'll take Clara."

The Doctor saw the challenge for what it was, Jack was testing him, trying to find a weakness, something he could use against this version of him in case he needed it. Clara was unconscious, there was no harm in handing her over, she wouldn't be aware of any of this. He rolled his eyes quite deliberately and handed her off to Jack with supreme disinterest, as he did so reaching out and brushing his mind against hers. Purile he knew, but she was comforted by the presence as Jack stalked away, her mind swimming with thoughts of her Doctor.


	8. Chapter 8

Clara awoke to the disturbing sound of a monitor beeping in time with her heartbeat and the distinct smell of antiseptic. Glancing around she realised she was on a hospital gurney. They were still on Earth, probably Torchwood. That was a shock. She imagined after her little 'incident' he'd of been on the first flight out of there. Some stupid instinct to protect her. She could have done without that particular notion becoming part of his psyche this time around, especially not when matched with that particular ego of his... it was just a recipe for irritation.

"So sleeping beauty awakes."

Clara groaned, rolling over and clutching her head. "Do you never quit it?" Clara muttered. "You're like a walking cliché Jack." But the grin slipped onto her face and she looked up into his matching one.

"Thought you weren't supposed to remember me now?" he looked far to pleased that she did, aiming a look that was straight from her memory at her which did strange things to her insides.

Clara sighed, rubbing her temples which prickled unpleasantly. "I remember you fine." She muttered. "The Doctor only had me wall up the unpleasant end to Oswin's life."

Jack moved forward and Clara was uncomfortably aware of him now, the scent of him stirring up thoughts that weren't hers and she glanced away, trying to hide the blush. "Hey." He breathed and his finger touched underneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. "I'm sorry, if I'd known..."

"What? That calling me the name I'd given you might turn my brain to mush?" Clara chuckled at the irony. "You know I'm seriously starting to the think the Doctor might be right, he's got some real bad luck this time around."

His finger brushed her chin, gliding upwards to her cheek and she tried not to close her eyes at the sensation, anyone else she'd have told them to take a walk, politely but firmly removed their hands, why the hell was he different...

"Maybe a man makes his own luck." He whispered and she was left wondering if he meant the Doctor or himself.

Clara rolled her eyes, hopping down off the bed and bringing her face inches from him, teasingly. "God you are such a corn dog." She shoved his chest forcing him to rock back, his hands up in mock wounding. Clara made to leave the room and he caught her wrist.

"I believe you now Clara, about _this_ version of him."

Clara sighed, glancing at his firm grip on her wrist. "He just needs time. He is still him, there's just been a lot."

"What could change him that much?" Jack pressed, his grip loosening as he slid back in front of her, blocking her exit and demanding an answer, no matter how casual his question seemed.

Clara stared hard, finally able to see the differences in him from the reckless and passionate young man in her memory that had nearly got his head blown off in a bar brawl over his ego. His eyes reminded her of the Doctors... so old and sad. Just without that all consuming intelligence that burnt bright enough to drown out even stars. No, Jack's twinkled with something far less pure.

"Gallifrey falls no more." It was more than she should say, after all the Doctor's business was his.

"He found more of his people?" Jack asked, his expression contained the kind of hope for his friend that let her know she could trust him.

"No. He saved them, changed his fate. 2.47 billion children didn't have to die." It sounded so easy, so right, but maybe that's what had been his downfall this time around. "But he's as far from them now as he's ever been and maybe one day he'll find them again. But I think it's the hope... before he had none and now, now he doesn't know what to do with it. Because what if they force him to make that choice again? What if he finds them and they are the very thing he's been running from?" It was almost a relief to finally say what she'd been thinking, to give voice to her darkest suspicions.

"I met that man." Jack acknowledged, looking uneasy and the shadow of the 9th passed before them both and Clara shuddered when she added that to the memory of the War Doctor.

"He can't go back." Clara admitted. "I'm worried about him. He's so tired now, a whole new set of regenerations... and all he wanted was to die; he sent me away so I wouldn't have to watch it, but I know it was what he was ready for."

Jack sighed. "Everyone's ready for death. That's sort of the big secret." He shrugged hopelessly. "Hey look at me, if I'd known that night in a shit-hole bar in the 51st Century might have been my one and only chance at it... maybe I'd have taken it. Dying in the arms of a beautiful woman," he leant in his voice raspy, "there are definitely worse ways to go."

Clara bit her lip, trying her best not to let Oswin cloud her judgement here as her hand rose to his cheek. "She saved you because you're important. Not just to the Doctor."

"Every life's important." He countered, turning his head and catching her hand with his lips to press a kiss to the palm and she couldn't help but be slightly charmed by the old pirate.

"Don't let him see you do that." She withdrew her hand. "He's a little angry this time around... and a lot over-protective."

Jack's blue eyes held laughter. "That's his big secret too you know." He leant in close his lips brushing her ear and sending a thrill through her spine. "He's always been angry."

"Don't mock him." Clara warned.

"Don't love him." He countered.

Clara felt her lips thin. "Let's agree that this thing between us, is awkward. I don't like it. She wasn't me... just her memories."

"Way I hear it; she wasn't half the woman you are, a paler imitation." He leant in closer with his whole body this time, his hand on the metal door frame, until she could feel his breath against her neck and she tried not to let him see how it made butterflies dance in the pit of her stomach as those lips pressed a kiss with a hint of teeth to her earlobe. "Got to say I'm curious to see just how much better the real deal could be, because the imitation left an impression even I didn't forget."

Clara resisted the urge to smack him because his voice so close was doing strange things to her knees, but she'd have liked to wipe that smug grin off his face. "Wasn't there a crisis Captain Jack, don't you think we should go and focus on that rather than something that is ancient history?"

"Oh I don't know, the way I hear it, it's still in the future." Clara couldn't help it, she half smiled, but it was more in exasperation, he really was incorrigible, but she had to wonder how much of this was front and how much of it was trying to get under skin, he always did have an angle.

"I'm going to find the Doctor, if you want to come, I'd suggest you find healthier ways to satisfy your curiosity about me Jack, because I'm not joking about his temper. Or mine." She grinned with a flash of teeth at him.

Jack laughed lightly and stepped back deliberately. "Lucky for me then he really can't kill me."

Clara eyed him sharply, finally seeing him misstep. "Do you really think that's true Jack?" his expression faltered for a second and Clara shook her head. "You should look into what he did in the 40s. The 'Family of Blood' thought they were invincible too." He blinked and she hated that she understood the Doctor, even this new him, because sometimes it was better just to live in blissful ignorance. "Trust me Jack, you don't want him to start thinking creatively. And that was on the watch of the hero in the sandshoes, imagine what this one would do."

Clara left Jack at a complete loss for words, she regretted it, because in another time she'd have danced around this thing between them and enjoyed every flirtatious minute of it. But she could still feel the caress of the Doctor in her mind. He probably hadn't meant to be so heavy handed, to leave such an imprint. Or maybe he'd thought she was more sound asleep than that? But linked as their minds were she'd felt every ounce of the unbidden feelings she knew he hadn't meant to transfer... or maybe he had. She had no idea of his motivations. All she knew was what she seemed to mean to him, the way he felt. It wasn't something to joke about, or make light of by playing silly games with Jack Harkness. Her last Doctor had been a blissful idiot when it came to matters like that, too much of a child at heart to let such a thing eat at him. But _this_ one. He felt things deeply, and the need to express it, good or bad seemed to be innate.

Jack caught up behind her as she stalked through the unfamiliar halls, quietly guiding her with a brush of his arm against hers, apparently he hadn't taken her warning quite to heart enough, because she could still feel the tension coming off him in waves and he winked at her as he stepped in front and shoved open the door to the command centre.

"I'll risk it." He rasped as she stalked past him, back straight not willing to let his words reveal quite how much they affected her. Damn him.

The Doctor was stood hands behind his back staring at several monitors, his focus not on one, but seemingly on all. As she approached he made no indication that he was aware of her.

"I take it your feeling better my dear?" he kept his back to her and she stepped up onto the platform, wondering where the rest of Jack's team were, because it was just the Doctor on that platform. Clara came to stand beside him and reached out a hand to his arm. He glanced her way and she felt her breath hitch at the new pain on her behalf she saw carved into his face. She couldn't help it, she pushed forward and enveloped him in a hug, surprised when his arms wrapped around her just as desperately and he pulled her close, rocking them both gently as his lips pressed against the top of her head. For a brief moment she felt the horror of it all dance behind her eyes, how terrified and hateful she'd felt, even if she couldn't reach the why, and he'd pulled her out of it, dived into her mind with abandon and shoved the Dalek into a corner until she could stand on her own two feet and fight it herself. It had been her fault, she should have had better control over her own mind than that, she knew better than to let the darkness buried in some of her memories out.

"Sorry." She mumbled against his chest.

"Don't be." He snapped, his irritation with her apology clear. "My fault for calling you that blasted name."

Clara rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't have made any difference." She admonished pulling back and looking up at him, "I'd have seen Jack, he'd have been his usual charming self and those memories would have come flooding back anyway." Because she was too weak to stop them she admitted to herself quietly.

The Doctor snorted and tucked her head back under his chin. "You did well, that wall was sturdy. We'll work on building others in there, just in case."

Clara sighed, there was no point trying to talk him out of it, clearly he'd decided that the inside of her head was a liability he couldn't protect her from... not without help. Unfortunately she was starting to agree, not that she'd admit it to him, but his offer was more than welcome, there was more than one horrific memory rattling its chains in the recesses of her mind. Clara turned, letting him keep her in the circle of his arms as she looked up at the monitors. "So what happened here?"

The Doctor tutted. "UNIT meddling."

Clara pursed her lips. "Is Kate alright?"

She felt the Doctor tense and she feared the worst. "Yes the Brigadier's daughter is fine. This wasn't her meddling."

Clara breathed a sigh of relief she quite liked the older woman who had apparently thoroughly vetted her potential as a companion to the Doctor. "Did they find an artefact or something, before the others mentioned mind control?"

"Yes, a Trilanic Activator. Apparently the Zygons left their little dog whistles behind after signing that little peace treaty the other me's instigated. UNIT in their great wisdom decided to try and modify it. With great success it would seem; they were certainly all dancing to another tune."

Clara frowned watching the screens as she slid out of his gentle reach, seeing UNIT soldiers firing on each other and civilians. "Like some kind of Trojan horse?"

"Exactly. Zygons understand humans, I'd imagine it's only natural when you share the mind of the person you're copying. They knew enough to leave a dangerous morsel about, let them find it and do what they do best."

"Curiosity is not a trait to be scorned." She chastised him lightly. "For anyone willing to follow you it's practically a prerequisite." He didn't say anything and she assumed she'd won that point for now.

"So you forced the Zygons to sign a peace treaty with Earth?" Jack joined them on the platform. "And I'm guessing they weren't too fond of the fine print."

The Doctor crossed his arms again. "Foolish show-boating on my former selves' part. There is no peace treaty possible with Zygons." He gave her a dark look, "They consider humans cattle and you don't make peace with cattle."

Clara didn't need to say it, she knew the Doctor was already thinking it... yet again another mess of his own making to clean up. Cursed was more like it she thought because bad luck just didn't cover it.

"Way we figure it," Jack began, "They found a way to reopen the rift, which wasn't quite as closed as we'd hoped. Some sort of signal between now and..."

"The Elizabethan era." The Doctor finished for him. "Yes. That was how they attacked last time, from the past."

Jack nodded. "Either way, they succeeded the Rift opened, whole bunch of Zygons came through... don't think they figured on the rest of the nasties trapped inside there tagging along for the ride. The Zygons came out in bits and pieces, literally."

"So the rift is still open?" Clara asked uneasily, staring around and wondering if something was leaking out right now.

Jack came to stand just a little too close to her, his hand brushing her back in what she knew was anything but an accidental way. "We've cranked the rift manipulator up to maximum, it's keeping it mostly suppressed, but yes... it's open again and we have no idea how to shut it down."

"Well how did you do it last time?" Clara pushed and instantly regretted it if the heartbroken look on Jack's face was anything to go by and his hand dropped away from her.

"I didn't, someone dear to me did. He detonated stones saturated with rift energy, it destroyed the rift for good." Jack blinked back tears.

The Doctor turned and gave him an incredulous look. "Hogwash."

Jack's face darkened and Clara pressed a hand to his chest, she'd seen that look before, it was the one he had given right before that bar patron in the far future had decided to blow his head off correctly assuming Jack was about to do the same to him.

The Doctor glanced between them, "Utter tosh." He continued completely oblivious to the kind of pain he seemed to be causing Jack. "I destroyed the rift, when the other me re-booted the Universe. Closed all the cracks everywhere... well, except for that pesky one the Time-Lords used to peek through."

"Ianto closed the Rift." Jack snarled and Clara could feel him vibrating with tension. "He died... again, doing it."

The Doctor was impassive. "Doctor," Clara hesitated. "Perhaps you're mistaken, maybe Ianto closed this one before you closed the rest." She pleaded with her eyes, begging him for once to listen to her body language or her mind screaming at him to take the _out_ she'd given him.

The Doctor looked between them and turned back to the console with a shrug. "I suppose it's possible." He said in a tone that said believe what you will prattling humans, but at least he had said it, possibly more for her benefit than Jack's, but it was a start. Clara felt the tension bleed fractionally out of Jack and she risked a sigh of relief.

"But it's of little consequence. Clearly the Time-Lords tampering as they tried to bodge holes in the patchwork of the Universe to reach me, tracing the spiderlike veins of the explosion that began the Universe caused more than one crack to re-open, this one was clearly wide enough for the Zygons to tamper with using your Rift Manipulator. A little pressure, and just like that a dangerous unstable gateway through time."

Clara's eyes widened, she quietly patted herself on the back for predicting the next incoming rant.

"Honestly, what did that bloody idiot before me do? Run around the Universe sticking bloody band-aids on everything?" He turned pointedly looking at her and she kept her mouth firmly shut, she wasn't quite ready to badmouth her original Doctor just yet. "I mean look at this mess. His again I might add. And who has to go around tearing off all those band-aids, stitching it all back up and amputating where I have to." His face was a contorted mask that she didn't dare interpret. "Me that's who." He bit out. "I swear Clara, if I ever see that floppy haired, rangy legged buffoon again I'll throttle him with his own bow-tie."

Jack was quicker to recover than her. "I'm not even going to touch the implications of self harm on that one and skip straight to the part where I ask if you can fix it?"

The Doctor glared at him. "Not without blowing up another Universe. Of course you're welcome to try that. The last me seemed to think it was a hoot."

"So it's open, and staying open again?" Jack asked sounding incredibly tired by the thought.

"Well," the Doctor smiled thinly at him, "On the bright side you do have a team in place here again. I'd suggest you permanently employ them and re-open the Hub. I imagine Cardiff is about to become an alien sighting hotspot again."

"That's your solution?" Jack was gearing himself up for a rant.

Clearly the Doctor thought so too because he cut him off mid stride. "I'm sorry, did any of my previous selves ever intonate that they could close the Rift?"

"I... well," Jack stumbled over that question.

"No. They used it as a pit-stop to refuel the TARDIS." He gave Jack a patronising, 'I told you not to start with me' look. "Why you ask pointlessly? Because exploding Universes' is exactly the reason why the rest of the known Universe wanted that last version of me dead. It's madness. Pure timey-wimey idiocy." He grumbled arms crossed firmly with a sour look on his face that reeked of self-loathing. "Torchwood always did a fine job of keeping this Rift at bay and mopping up its messes, I'd suggest you take up your old hobby, or someone might accuse you of merely standing by and watching as the world goes to hell Jack."

"Ok, when you put it like that..." Jack settled for, swallowing hard and clearly deciding on keeping what he was going to say in check. "So, I guess the bands getting back together again."

The Doctor returned to the monitors. "I've modified the rift manipulator to help give you greater control and if I'm not mistaken those tweaks I made to Gwen's little alien detectors are working well they should have the majority of your escaped beasties rounded up in no time. So..." he rubbed his hands together a little manically and sniffing the air. "Oh. Good. Time's no longer in flux. I guess it was the re-assembly of Torchwood 3 that did it. I'd imagine that means you have a lot of work to do here."

Jack gave her a look and Clara shrugged helplessly. "So you're leaving?" Jack pressed, sounding thoroughly exasperated now, Clara imagined when this was all over he'd either go and empty a bottle or shoot something. She couldn't blame him.

"What?" the Doctor turned, clearly his mind was already elsewhere. "Oh yes, right, most definitely leaving. Probably the TARDIS was just using this as an excuse to refuel anyway temperamental creature that she is. I imagine this amused her."

Clara interceded before she feared Jack's fist might connect with the Doctor's face. "But I'm sure if Jack and Torchwood run into any 'life or death' situations again they can call you for backup, right Doctor?"

The Doctor had his back to them but she saw his shoulders drop slightly and his breathing came out in a gentle whoosh of defeat. "Fine." He muttered, he turned his finger raised to Jack wagging in his best impression of a scolding teacher. "Life and Death though." He warned "and for God sake try and get UNIT to exercise some common sense or I'll have to permanently ensure they lose the keys to the Black Archive." He spun on his heel and stalked away, apparently he was the sort for dramatic exits now.

"Come along Clara." He called behind him and she hesitated giving a Jack a look that she hoped expressed her apologies for the Doctor and her thanks for Jack not punching him.

Jack nodded and she turned away only to find that he'd grabbed her wrist and spun her back into his arms before she could even squeak out a protest. His lips found hers and she momentarily forgot how to breath as he made her see stars all over again. He broke the kiss slowly and she found herself staring up from her all but swooned position into those baby blues. "You and I are most definitely going to see each other again." He planted her back on her feet and she tried to say something coherent. Nothing came to mind so she gave him a shaky little wave and hastily put one foot in front of the other until she was able to link arms with the Doctor as they both headed for the TARDIS.

"Ok, let's go." She hissed at him, "Before he remembers I didn't give him that vortex manipulator back..." Or before she decided she couldn't leave without doing something drastic to sate the fire the man kept stoking inside of her.

The Doctor glanced back at Jack as they walked and she saw the two of them exchange nods; well at least if nothing else Jack didn't hate this version of the Doctor Clara reasoned, which she thought probably amounted to a win in this case. She could live with that, no one ever said progress was easy after all.

**_Authors Note: the Cardiff Rift according to canon was closed in the audio-story 'the house of the dead' by the ghost of Ianto Jones. Although Russell T Davis contradicted this saying that the rift was closed when the 11_****_th_****_ Doctor closed the cracks in time by re-booting the Universe. Here I'm just assuming that both might be true... seems neater that way and doesn't take away from either act, and it served my purposes for this story, although I did say 'might' be true J _**


	9. Chapter 9

**AUTHOR's Warning: M rating for this chapter for Sexual Themes **

**(don't get too excited, all will be explained below!).**

Clara threw her head back and tried to contain the waves of pleasure that were coursing through her body, her hand reached out grasping for some purchase, she found the Doctor' hand and squeezed it hard, biting down on her lip to suppress the scream.

"Breathe Clara." He admonished and she gave him a scathing glare that was lessened by the groan she let out as she felt her toes curl. Her vision wavered and so did the image of him.

"How long did you say this might last..." she panted out, feeling a desperate pressure beginning to build in her lower abdomen.

"The toxin from its bite affects all species differently. There really is no telling, although by the speed of the symptoms I'd say maybe another hour or two."

"An hour!" Clara shrieked and felt her back arch as she clutched at the fabric of his coat trying to force him to understand that she wouldn't survive another five minutes of this, let alone an hour.

"Or two." He added helpfully, "I'm surprised at your reaction?" he certainly looked it Clara noted as she twisted her legs beneath her into almost a fetal position, hoping to lessen the sensation. "Some species have been known to deliberately invite the bite of the Ardor Spider. In fact there have been entire Celebrations based around it that can last weeks."

"I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin." She breathed, clutching at her midsection and trying not to notice his warmth beside her, or the way his hand was splayed across her back supportively, it felt so real, her breath came in shuddering as she considered that it might not be.

"Yes, well I imagine having no outlet for the passions the bite can incite would make it somewhat more onerous."

Clara found herself staring at his lips, wondering if he knew what his voice did to her, the way that Scottish lilt could affect her. But she wasn't buying it, she thought she knew this Doctor well enough now, he wasn't the bumbling sexual prude the last one had been, he was fully aware of his own desires this time around... and hers. After all, their one and only kiss, he had instigated.

"You want me to beg don't you." She all but hissed at him, grasping him by his jacket collar and pulling him over her.

The Doctor's hands went to hers pulling them away and pinning them at her sides and she was helpless as her body bucked beneath him, trying to draw him closer.

"I'd settle for you asking." He whispered as his head lowered and she almost screamed in frustration as his lips brushed hers so briefly that it seemed to burn them.

"Will it stop?" she rasped, revelling in the feel of his heartbeat against her.

"No." He admitted, "But I have heard it said that the Ardor's bite can allow a person to reach heights of ecstasy with another that would never be possible otherwise."

Clara felt her head fall back against the floor and she arched her body beneath him, feeling him move with her and she shook her head. "Tell me." She opened her eyes forcing him to meet her stare. "Tell me you want this, want me like this. Not because of some damn bite, or way of making this better for me, tell me that you want _me_."

The Doctors grin was wide and she felt his lower half press against her sending fresh waves of tension through her body that seemed to explode like stars behind her eyes. His lips latched onto her neck and she cried out at the feeling of teeth against her sensitive flesh. "Oh I want you Clara. Believe me, if I could have planned this bite I would have, just to get you on your back like this, writhing beneath me. I could make this hour feel like lifetimes Clara, would you like me to do that?"

Clara was almost lost to the haze of lust as she stared up at him the rock wall flickered behind his head and she almost screamed in frustration, "I'm hallucinating aren't I?" she growled. "This is some sort of chemical reaction going on in my brain and I'm still in that damn cave filled with spiders about to be eaten whilst I lie here in some sort of lust filled stupor."

The Doctor above smiled and pressed his lips to hers and god did she want it to be true, to know that he tasted like cinnamon and jammy dodgers, to feel his fingers sliding along her flesh. But her Doctor wouldn't take advantage of her... wouldn't so much as touch her anymore unless she instigated it, not with her threat after she'd slapped him soundly for his last presumption.

It took a supreme amount of effort for Clara to push him off and drag herself up to her feet, she didn't want to know what her hands had actually been touching, but she could hear a screeching like nails on a chalk board that sent a primal part of her brain scuttling for cover.

A spider filled cave. That's where she was. That was where she'd fallen into and gotten bitten. Whatever she was seeing was a lie.

Although she considered that it might mean that just because she thought she was on her feet, didn't mean she actually was. She chased that thought for a second and decided it didn't matter, she could only work with what she had. It felt like she was on her feet, she had to trust she was. If not she was dead anyway so it seemed a fairly moot point.

Walking was agony, her lower half was in revolt and she stumbled more often than she managed to put one foot in front of the other, her whole body shaking and trembling with a need she couldn't sate. It didn't help that every time she opened her eyes she was making her slow way towards Jack Harkness, his wicked grin in place, stark naked and more than ready to greet her.

Ok so knowing Jack was there really did give credence to her 'this is an hallucination theory'. He slipped behind her when she made her unsteady way towards him and she resisted his pull around her waist, his lips at her ear tugging just as insistently into ever increasing nips that sent fresh waves racing over her.

"Stay here Clara." He rasped and she groaned as his hands pushed beneath her skirt, his soft fingers running along her thighs. "I want you Clara, think what a pair we'd make, you and me. Forget the Doctor." His tongue dipped into her ear and she shuddered, inhaling violently and coming so close to orgasm from such a simple gesture that she wondered if they bottled this damn toxin and sold it as a party drug somewhere... probably.

Which bought her back to the spiders... the cave full of hungry spiders that were waiting for her to keel over, passed out from the sheer overwrought exhaustion of their damn poison before they could eat her. She shoved the phantom Jack away and stumbled forward towards the distinctly brighter area in her fuzzy vision which so far had been reduced to just the object of her desires. The fuzziness lightened and she felt air on her face, even as Jack looped his arms around her, pressing his considerable persuasion into her spine. "Stay." He breathed and she shook her head, feeling the beads of sweat trickling down said spine and across her throat.

"Doctor!" she screamed, hoping to God he wasn't stupid enough to have fallen into the cave as well, because finding him in there amidst her hallucinations wasn't something she felt confident in doing.

But fake Jack was being persistent, his arms had become vice like and she felt herself needing to drag her heels in and pull against him. Clara pushed at his hands, finding them caked in something sticky and... oh god it was web, she was covered in web. At the thought she expected the desire pulsing through her to abate in favour of horror, if anything it intensified, probably contact with the web she reasoned, aware she was slowly stroking down her own arms and pressing the web closer.

"Doctor!" she screamed again, realising there was a distinct possibility that she might not be able to get away. Her legs were turning to jelly and she fell to her knees, giving up all pretences of walking and simply dragging her overheating and desperately aching self along the ground. The ground was swimming in and out of focus and her eyes were starting to roll back into her head.

"Clara. Clara!" she heard his voice and didn't immediately respond, her efforts to keep moving forward having ceased as she lay there simply panting and writhing. His hands found her face and she didn't care if he was real or a hallucination, she grabbed his face and crushed her mouth to his, inhaling him as she gasped at the feeling of his tongue against hers. Her hands tugged him closer, trying to wrap her legs around his waist.

"Stop." He hissed, prying her lips away and pressing a warm and oh so clever hand to her forehead.

"Can't." She all but apologised, latching onto his neck, the soft salty tang of his flesh there flooded her and she moaned deeply, feeling him grasp her around the back and lift her, hoisting her legs further around his waist. "God's Clara stop." He rasped and she realised he was running or rather stumbling at some speed with her. "Just hold on. We're almost at the water."

"I want you." She bit down hard on his ear, tasting blood and not caring when he let out a cry and pulled her closer into his chest, the rhythm of his running against her was driving her insane and she pushed her hips into his, trying to do anything to sate the dreadful need that had centred there.

"Clara. Clara. Clara." Her voice seemed to be a litany to him as he ran with her and she wondered if he had been affected too, if so he was handling it a lot better than her. Her hands explored and he sucked in a breath as she slid them inside of his shirt, touching the warmth of skin there.

The water hit her back and she screeched in relief as waves of utter pleasure crashed over her in shock and abruptly shut off as the sensation of the cold sharp chill seeped into her brain, washing away the burning heat that had become all consuming. The Doctor was with her, his arms holding her fast and keeping her held beneath the water, his clothes plastered to him as he pulled her out and wrapped her arms around his neck once more, keeping her close. His hands went to her lolling face and she tried to focus on him, the soft smile on her face clearly amusing him.

"Better?" he laughed lightly and she tried not to blush in mortification, she merely nodded, burying her head in his chest and his laughter increased, but she felt the way he pressed her closer, and with her legs still wrapped around his waist there was no mistaking just what her predicament had done to him.

"Doctor." She tried to apologise, but the words wouldn't come, they just got stuck in her throat as he shifted and pressed more directly against her.

"Despite all the evidence I am a man Clara." He sounded almost apologetic too, "And try as I might even I cannot suppress the natural reaction when a beautiful woman is experiencing the throws of passion whilst wrapped around my body."

Clara swallowed hard and attempted to lower her legs, but he held them firm around him and she found herself staring hard into his eyes, trying to interpret the gesture as anything other than what she suspected.

"I'm sorry." She breathed, feeling his answering breath across her face she tried to ignore the supreme tiredness that was seeping deep into her bones in an attempt to hold onto this moment, whatever it was.

"I'm not." He replied coolly and she felt his hand trace her spine reverently as his second hand slid lower to her ass, holding her in place around his hips. "If I kiss you Clara, will I be greeted with the same reaction as last time?"

Clara felt her heart hammering in her chest. "I honestly don't know." She admitted worrying her bottom lip and seeing his focus shift to it for a second, his eyes alighting at the prospect of such an invitation.

"I've given you fair warning." He insisted and she felt his hand slide up from her back towards the base of her skull, angling her head closer to his and tangling in her soaked hair. Like this she could feel every contour of him against her, the soaked clothes between them heavy but almost immaterial.

His lips brushed hers and Clara felt her eyes flutter closed with the gentle pressure. He explored every corner of her lips, sucking gently on her bottom one until she felt the touch of his tongue questing for entrance. It was a moment she knew she couldn't take back, couldn't undo as she opened her mouth to his and heard his answering groan of desire, his hands crushing her closer and increasing the pressure between them. His kiss was so different to what she'd imagined, so different from anything else she'd ever experienced... it was otherworldly she decided, trying to keep pace with him, her tongue battling for supremacy as she felt his mind probe as delicately as his tongue against the still raw pleasure centres of her brain and she almost whimpered. He pulled back, breaking the kiss and cradling her face, as his hands released their hold on her, letting her feet slide slowly down until they hit the floor.

Clara didn't dare open her eyes, not wanting to see what expression he was wearing, knowing hers would be disappointment that he was choosing to stop now.

His fingers traced her closed lids. "Patience Clara." He breathed and she opened them slowly finding his soft smile. "I'm afraid you are more than a little tired and far too overwrought for me to take such advantage."

Clara grasped his shirt holding him fast. "I'm really not." She insisted and he smirked.

"I am as I explained, only a man Clara, please don't press my already pushed self control to its limits." Even his voice sounded strained with the admission.

"Why?" she pressed a coy smile tugging at her lips that drew an exasperated one from him.

"You really are impossible." He muttered, removing her hands that had begun to wander and pressed a kiss to the palm of one before taking the other in his hand and leading her out of the water. "The venom of the spiders bite hasn't dissipated and if this is a path you are choosing to take with a considerably older man, I want you stone cold sober for it."

Clara stared at him, wondering if self control was also a new thing for him, because it had never been particularly high on his list before that she was aware of and he was displaying a shocking amount of it right now. Particularly as she saw the more than appreciative look he couldn't hide when he realised her dress was plastered to her body, she almost wished it hadn't been dark blue, something paler and she'd imagine he'd have had a harder time resisting. Although that might have been the venom talking she conceded and her eyes darted about slightly, looking for the eight legged fiends with mild unease.

As they walked, hand in hand, oddly silent, she considered his comment, it was clearly bothering him, 'the older thing' and she supposed it _was_ more evident now. He'd always been ancient but now the smattering of silver hair would mean that other people, like her family, might remark on it if she were to introduce him as her boyfriend... although after the naked Swedish one she thought they might find this preferable. And yes, in her selfish heart of hearts she preferred his last face, the youth and chiselled slightly unusual character to it, if not that ridiculous chin of course. But loving the Doctor she knew meant not getting attached to one form. He didn't really have _one_. That mixed face she'd seen in his minds eye was the closest she thought she might ever get to the real him and that had been a face she could easily have stared at for hours. So what did it matter if this him was more silver and creased?

If anything it was the mind behind the body that gave her pause... that was the ancient beast, the unknowable, untameable creature that would crush her youthful optimism if she let it.

The thought sent a cold chill through her. She could love him, utterly. Most of his companions did. But when it came to him loving her back, what real hope did she have? The most she could imagine was to be the flavour of the month... or face, she supposed relating the old saying to her circumstance. Was it enough? Was it enough to be loved by the Doctor even if only for a little while? River Song certainly seemed to think so, even if she'd been left behind, like a book on a shelf in the end with no true closure. Clara had seen more of him than anyone else, knew him better she liked to think; so if anyone could make the judgement if it was worth it, it should have been her right? So would her heart survive him? His fingers curled around hers and she wondered if he was sensing where her thoughts had led her, she certainly couldn't feel his presence in her mind, but that didn't mean much.

"Will you break my heart Doctor?" she asked him gently as they walked cautiously back to the TARDIS his clever eyes scanning for signs of traps like the last one she'd fallen through.

"Undoubtedly." He replied, not looking back at her, but his grip tightened, like he wouldn't relinquish her hand if she chose to pull away at his response. She didn't. "But then I should imagine it will break both of mine, so of the two of us my risk is greater."

"How very reasoned of you." She muttered, but she believed him, the last Doctor had been a liar; bald faced and unrelenting in his dishonesty. But this one, he was brutally honest even if it cost him. She supposed that was what they meant by 'careful what you wished for'.

The Doctor tutted. "You want me to tell you I'm not worth it?" he spun on her and grasped her wrist, leaning in close and startling her. "I'm not. You know that better than anyone."

"Hogwash." She bit out, stealing his word. "Don't pretend to be humble, you know what you are, what you do to people. The feelings you incite, good god if someone didn't fall hopelessly in love with you then you'd know you were losing your touch."

"Are we arguing now?" he bit out looking genuinely confused as to how she'd gotten so suddenly mad at him.

"Oh god you are maddening." She threw back at him, trying to tear her wrist loose from his grasp and finding he wasn't letting it go. This was another side of him she wasn't thrilled with, his tendency to use his strength against her.

"What do you want me to say Clara. I'm a cantankerous old bastard this time around, but I know what's in my hearts and forgive me but I want to act on what's there. I won't run around denying the simple pleasures in life out of some misplaced penance."

He was right up against her again, his anger making him breathe heavily and Clara felt the last vestiges of the venom sliding through her and alighting with the thrill of him so close, so on edge. His hands went out and she sucked in a surprised breath as he pushed her back against the nearest tree, crowding her personal space. So that was it she mused... the loss of guilt over his people, that's what had freed him to be a miserable old bastard again, because now he didn't have anything to prove, no one to apologise to.

"Penance wasn't why you saved all those people, all those worlds." She told him quietly, feeling his hands trace softly up her arms.

"No," he acknowledged, leaning into her throat and she obliged letting her head fall back against the bark, trying to keep her eyes on him. "But it was why I never let myself truly believe I deserved to be happy. Why I never allowed myself even the simplest pleasures."

Clara closed her eyes as his lips pressed against her pulse point. "Is that what I am to you, simple pleasure?" she half teased, half probed. His teeth worried her skin and she hissed.

"Don't be coy Clara, it doesn't become you." He warned, his voice a low Scottish rumble against her skin. "And you are anything but simple." His hand pressed against her stomach igniting a fire lower and she tried to reign herself in, failing miserably as she felt her hands wander up to his skull trying to bring his lips to hers. He resisted pulling back.

"Not now dear girl." He pressed his thumb to her lips and she kissed it lightly. "I'm afraid as addled and responsive as you are right now, I might damage you." He tugged her by the hand pulling her along as he made his way with more speed now back to the TARDIS.

When they reached the TARDIS she was slightly more hopeful as he all but marched her into her bedroom, the fluffy bed was back she noted. "Dry yourself off and try and get some sleep." He instructed turning away. "We'll discuss this further in the morning when you are free of the venom's effects."

"You're seriously just going to walk away?" she asked in mild disbelief.

"Yes." He muttered. "And the TARDIS is going to lock the door so neither of us is tempted to go for a late night stroll."

Clara opened her mouth and closed it, feeling her hands land on her hips as anger blossomed. "I am not a child Doctor. You can't just lock me in my room when you think I'm being difficult."

The Doctor went unbelievably still and she saw that ever present anger in him rise. "Then let me be explicit my dear." He bit out, stalking forward his eyes blazing with anger and a lust so fierce she almost stumbled back. He thrust his wrist out towards her and she saw the unmistakable markings of a bite. "I am not safe right now."

Clara backed up. "I have used up all of my self control. This venom affects all species differently Clara and whilst its effects on you were fairly instantaneous it has taken some time longer to seep into my central nervous system. I'm afraid a simple ice bath won't cut it for me."

Clara noticed the tremble in his hands, "So you're what, going to go back to your room and suffer until you what, sweat it out?"

"Precisely." He all but spat. "Because believe me you wouldn't want the alternative."

Clara cocked an eyebrow not entirely sure that was true. But he didn't want this, not like this, he'd all but said that to her as she'd clung to him as he flew through the forest. He wanted to be as stone cold sober as he wanted her to be. "Get out then, before I change my mind." Clara snapped, turning her back on him, astonished that the man had any self control left at all, if he was experiencing even a fraction of what she had in that cave she didn't know how he was still standing, if he hadn't dumped her in that water... god she couldn't imagine having to simply wait it out, the hallucinations alone would have done her in.

His fingers brushed her spine and she heard the door close, the distinctive sound of the locks engaging and she sagged, holding herself around the waist and trying not to sob out loud. That god damn man could put her through the emotional ringer with just a few words. What the hell was she supposed to think now? Was his reciprocation, everything he had done simply the effects of his own bite? Or did he actually want something more with her? She thought she knew exactly what he was thinking, what he wanted and then he'd throw a spanner in the works.

But she had no choice, she wasn't stupid enough to leave the room, she'd have to wait to see what exactly was between them in the morning when they were both, in the Doctor's words, 'sober'.


	10. Chapter 10

The Doctor collapsed outside of her room and slid down her door, "Don't you dare unlock this door." He threatened his TARDIS, drawing up his knees and dropping his head to them as he struggled to breathe. The venom was coursing through him now and his twin hearts beat wildly beneath his chest.

Her reaction had been relatively tame compared to the onslaught he knew his body was capable of experiencing. Particularly as he had denied himself the pleasures of a woman for so many hundreds of years now, not since River.

The foppish man child hadn't been immune to Clara's charms, he was even less so, he clutched his own arms across his chest, his hands shaking violently and he slammed his head back against the metal door. He'd have given more than he cared to admit to open her door, stalk inside and do exactly what he was certain they both wanted. But she was under his care... whether she liked to believe that or not, this would be an abuse of trust, no matter if they were both consenting adults, because she was as incapable as he was right now of making a rational decision.

He should have noticed the signs of the damn Ador Spiders... more and more species were deliberately infesting local moons with them to harvest the venom in its weakened state as an aphrodisiac. He punched the floor hard repeatedly.

Gods he wanted her, but then he supposed that was nothing new.

He wondered if she would ever be so willing to introduce him as her lover as she did his last face, would she proudly stand there shoulder to shoulder with him in front of her father and stepmother? The image pained him and he closed his eyes, squeezing them tight and trying to banish the thought, it was so quant he worried his mind was more addled than he'd suspected.

The concept of a physical age difference in a relationship meant little to Time-Lords. Husband and wives could be separated by hundreds of years and even genders throughout a course of multiple lifetimes together. Clara had been a Time-Lady once, she would know this as well as he did if she chose to go searching for the memory. But understanding it, breaking her human taboos would be more difficult.

And then there was him, she feared what was inside of him, the beast she knew he harboured that loving her would only make more dangerous. God the things he would do to protect the thing he loved, which it would seem had become her. He understood her fear. Admired that she could face it and still consider him a valid choice for her. The fact that she was wrong was just a cruel trick of fate on them both.

"Is this why you hated her?" he asked aloud, feeling the gentle thrum of the TARDIS as she drifted through the vortex. "Do I do something... for the love of her?" she didn't answer, of course she wouldn't. He'd assumed the Old Girls dislike had been because of _what_ Clara was, much like Jack, she was an anomaly, for all intense and purposes she was a fixed point too... lots of them in fact.

Whatever it was the TARDIS had clearly resigned herself to the fate, because he still held the sonic screwdriver, a twin to his own, that she had produced for Clara.

He pulled it out now and held it next to his own, it was smaller, sleeker and with a whole host of buttons his didn't have, a different operating system if he wasn't mistaken. He hadn't given it her yet and he wasn't entirely certain why. Keeping his mind active took his focus from his body which was in full out rebellion against him; so he analysed himself now, let his mind mull over the problem that had been his and his predecessors for so long now. The problem of Clara Oswin Oswald.

So why not give her the sonic... a sonic made just for her? Perhaps it was for the simple fact that it would solidify the bond between them, it would take her a step beyond a mere companion, putting her side by side River in both his and the TARDIS' affections. But she wasn't River... she was infinitely more fragile and yet more whole than River had ever been; which of course had also been his fault. But he wasn't fool enough to think she was a match for River; River had been something different, a _once_ in even his long-life. His bespoke psychopath, she had been every bit as beastly as him and he had adored and pitied that about her.

But Clara... she was the beauty to his beast, something to soothe not excite. Or at least that was how it was supposed to go. He closed his fist in frustration, biting his lip to prevent from crying out as his body spasmed his immune system working overdrive to banish the toxin from him as the sweat broke out all over his skin.

He wanted her. Like a child that needed a replacement toy for the other ones he'd broken. But if that was the role he was to place her in, it would be to admit that she would one day be replaced to. The futility of it was what destroyed him every time, the knowledge that everything ends... but with them, it was always too soon. The fear of that pain to come had always crippled him, so much so that he'd never been able to face it, and so he'd walked away time and time again, held up a barrier between himself and them, they could know him, but never truly be with him.

But he was a new man now, a man not littered with the genocide of his own species. The weight that had crushed him for a millennia was gone, the name he had created for himself was in tatters. What was there to fear? He had lifetimes of pain, what was a little more to add to it, if in the short term it bought him something new... happiness.

"Oh my dear Doctor, puzzling over little old me?" He opened his eyes and watched as his addled mind reached the hallucinogenic portion of its bag of tricks. His mind had done a wonderful job in recreating her he noted right down to that wickedly curved little mouth; he admired her shape as she sauntered up to him, that dress still plastered to her soaked form. In one graceful move she was sliding over his lap, straddling him and pressing her warm heat against his crotch. Perfect fit he noted, like this regeneration of him had been created to perfectly complement his eager little human.

"Clara, my sweet Clara." He rasped, feeling his hands settle over her hips. A remarkably tactile hallucination too he noted, no wonder this venom was selling for such a high price these days, clearly it had grown more potent since he'd last encountered it. Whether that had been artificially induced he didn't know, but he suspected. "Are you here to torment an old man?" he tugged her forward and pressed his lips to hers. His mind could be delightfully perverse when it wanted he noted, because she didn't taste of anything... his mental conditioning fighting the hallucination in its own way, forcing him to remain lucidly aware that the apparition pressing herself into him was just that, a fake.

He pushed her away, shattering the illusion and leaving his body in a worse predicament than it had started in. Of course sating the lust wouldn't help, if anything his endocrine system was being slowly overtaken, submitting to it would allow the venom greater access to flood it; leaving him a writhing mess who would need to struggle with himself not to simply override the mechanisms in her door behind him.

"She wouldn't say no." The hallucination teased, crawling towards him on all fours, worrying that lower lips of hers that he now knew from experience begged to be sucked on.

"You are not her." He closed his eyes, trying to force his body to ignore the phantom sensations of her hands as they trailed up his thighs.

"I'm your version of her... so many possibilities." Her honey like voice purred against his ear and he slammed his fist into the floor beside him again and again, the shooting stab of pain washing away the hallucination for a moment.

He sent out a mental plea to the TARDIS, "Do something." He bit out, "Block this infernal apparition." To her credit he felt his wonderful machine try, her telepathic link forcing its way into his mind and attempting to fill it with other thoughts, other ideas... the eye of harmony, the untempered skism.

Clara's small soft hands slid across his groin quite deliberately and he was jolted back to his hallucination, shoving her hands away and sucking in a breath at the sultry look she was leveling at him. He had to move. There weren't enough deadbolts on her door. His temptress followed him and he ran faster, sweeping through endless corridors, the TARDIS winding a labyrinth behind him. Despite his protests about it not being able to help he found himself diving headlong into the frigid water of the swimming pool, holding his head beneath the water and praying for something to drive this torment from him.

* * *

The Doctor awoke to find himself curled up on the floor, significantly rumpled and still damp in what looked remarkably like a broom cupboard, he sunk down and appraised himself... the toxin was gone. His miscoloured kidneys had taken the worst of the damage and he huffed at them. Mis-coloured and sluggish, not what one wanted in a kidney.

His head was throbbing and he blinked a couple of times, trying to forget why it was the TARDIS had clearly chosen to lock him in a room barely large enough for him, at least he assumed it was her, he doubted he'd have had the presence of mind to do it to himself. He was sore, all over. The knuckles of his right hand were split and bloodied he noticed, clearly the floor in the corridor wasn't the only thing he'd punched in frustration. He pulled up his left hand and compared the matching damage.

"Is she safe?" he whispered, dreading the TARDIS's response. It washed over him and he sagged in relief as the image of her sleeping soundly drifted through his consciousness.

He was depraved. He dropped his head into his hands, he hadn't resisted the temptations of his own hallucinations; he knew that, felt it. She had been so pliable, his mind twisting her innocent form to his own wicked desires with abandon. He felt a sob choke at him and he stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit down hard. Thousand's of years, of species... he knew every trick in every book, some that had been deliberately missed out.

That was not the man Clara wanted. Not the man she deserved. What if he couldn't love her the way she should be? What if this god forsaken Beast was all he had to offer her?


	11. Chapter 11

Clara awoke feeling like she'd gone a round with Mike Tyson, everything ached, even her gums, if there was any doubt that she'd been 'poisoned' it was gone now as she stumbled out of the bed she'd collapsed into. Dressing took too long, she hopped on one foot for a minute trying to get into her socks, finding it too hard to balance and giving up on any attempt to wear something matching as she threw the nearest outfit on. Not that she was especially keen to face the Doctor again after the fool she'd made of herself. But he'd been affected too and he'd said it was different for every species, she'd gone down almost immediately after the bite, whereas his had definitely been more of a slow burn, she needed to check on him make sure he was ok, even if he was an ass. And possibly to check that she hadn't done irreparable damage to their somewhat hesitant... 'companionship'.

The door slid open without resistance and she headed out, almost tripping over the pair of feet... that belonged to legs, which belonged to the Doctor who was propped up against the wall beside her door, his head on his chest, snoring.

Catching herself on her doorframe she spun on him, looking down with an eyebrow arched imperiously, trying not to draw the obvious conclusion from his position as he jerked awake, his snores cutting off abruptly.

"Sleep well?" she enquired and he raised his head to reveal blood shot eyes in a sallow complexion. "Oh my stars you look dreadful." She whispered bending down, wanting to touch him and hesitating as the embarrassment flared and she shoved it to the back of her mind with the sudden concern that maybe he really wasn't well. Her hand went to his forehead, finding it clammy and hot.

His hand rose and took hers away. "It's fine, the fever broke some hours ago." He didn't release her hand she noticed and she brushed her thumb gently over his broken and bloodied knuckles, not wanting to know exactly what he had done to himself.

Clara stared at him feeling irritation bubbling. "If you were sick you should have woken me!"

The Doctor chuckled, but it was a dark sound. "No. I shouldn't." He admitted looking disturbed by the mere thought. "I was not myself last night." Her hand fell away from his suddenly loose fingers.

Clara took stock of his position outside of her door again, his bloodied knuckles and silently thanked the TARDIS for keeping her promise to both of them and keeping that door firmly closed, even if he was sick with fever at the time she wasn't sure if their still fragile relationship would have survived anything further than her embarrassing attempts to seduce him. Clara sighed, choosing not to voice her concerns as she slid down the wall to sit beside him, stretching her legs out to match his and dropping her head on his shoulder. Why was it so impossible for her to stay mad at him? Of course the state he was in right now; is inability to make eye contact let her know that she was the likely cause. "Do you want me to get you anything?" she offered gently, brushing across his damaged knuckles with her finger tips.

"My dignity." He muttered, looking thoroughly miserable as he withdrew his hand from her reach.

Clara rolled her eyes. "You were the picture of dignity. It's me that should be apologising." She clucked at herself. "Honestly I'd have been spider chow if it wasn't for you sweeping me off my feet and throwing me head first into a lake of freezing cold water... thanks for that by the way." She smirked at him, trying to lighten the moment and ignoring whatever indignities he had clearly been through that she wasn't privy to. It clearly worked because he gave her a small smile which lit her insides in a way that she wouldn't have believed possible a few weeks ago.

He held his hand palm out to her and she obligingly placed her hand in his, surprised but a little bit pleased when he immediately raised it to his lips to press a soft kiss there. Clara supposed it should feel uncomfortable, knowing the things she'd said to him, tried to do to him... and what she'd succeeded to do in some cases. But she didn't, if anything she felt comfortable with him sat there staring at his closed lids as he drew the simple pleasure from her presence. Just like he used to, with that other face. Although the phrase simple pleasure danced around her mind and she flashed back to a tree, to the feel of him pressing against her, denying himself again.

Clara tried to shake the image, knowing it was never going to happen, it was permanently etched into her brain, along with a couple of other choice ones... including a couple of Jack which she'd ponder over later. "Maybe we should take that planet off the 'safe' list." She offered and he smiled wanly.

"Yes, I suppose we should." His head fell back against the wall and he closed his eyes again, clearly exhausted and she thanked her lucky stars that as an 'inferior' human the simple cold shower had worked perfectly well on her, and as crap as she was feeling this morning, he was clearly worse.

"Are you sure you're ok?" she asked, squeezing his hand lightly. "Because I'd be a terrible nurse, and despite what it says on your name tag... you're not really a Doctor."

"Don't fuss Clara." He grouched, keeping his eyes closed. "Just let me enjoy resting here." The 'with you' seemed implied so she just dropped her head to his shoulder again and listened to his heart beat steadily in time with his slow breathing wondering why his clothes were slightly damp.

The questions that had pained her last night rose and she squashed them, feeling the tension begin to radiate from her, despite her best efforts to keep it at bay, but her mind was racing and his warmth beside her wasn't making it any easier to banish them, or the memory of just how badly she'd wanted him... venom or not that was a potent memory that she wasn't soon going to be able to forget and it stirred something in her again that she at least now was able to forcibly shove back into her mental locker of forbidden things.

"Ask." He snapped after a few minutes of silence and she almost jumped in surprise at his sharp tone. He cracked open an eye, daring her to pretend there wasn't something playing on her mind, and they both knew full well what.

"Was it all just the bite?" She hated that she sounded like the inexperienced teenage girl asking the older, wiser, sexier man if she was worth anything to him. Pathetic... her many lives and powerful personalities disowned her in disgust.

He opened the other eye and righted his head, giving her his full attention so that he could meet her gaze head on, he raised his blood stained knuckles shakily his eyebrow quirking at her in disbelief almost that she needed to ask the question when his predicament seemed obvious to them both. "Was yours?" he questioned just as tersely and Clara digested that question quietly interpreting his non-answer in it.

"No." She settled on trying to be bold, to be brave, he nodded clearly pleased and with that response if his small pained smile meant anything and he lowered his head to his chest again, his hand rising to his brow.

"The Ardor's venom is so effective because it enhances that which is already there... no matter what species you are." Clara dropped his piercing gaze, not able to handle the intensity of that stare matched with those words, feeling like that immature teenager again. "Surely you understood even that foppish man-child's affections for you?" she didn't respond causing him to sigh loudly and she was fairly certain he was aiming the 'foolish human' look her way again. "He spent a decade pondering you in a 12th Century monastery. You were his obsession before he'd even met the real you." His hand rose and he brushed her cheek lightly, "I assure you I am just as affected; but then I'm told my good judgement is a little off this 'face' round."

"Oh." It was all she could manage and all her bravado bled away as his hand fell away from her face, the rest of her words getting lost somewhere in her throat, what else were you supposed to say when someone like the Doctor called you his obsession? Aside from the initial instinct to thank him... she was alarmed to realise she was more than a little unnerved by it and by the idea that he thought it was the more morally ambiguous side of him this time round that was allowing him to act on it. Looking for assurance she felt her hand drop into to her pocket and clutch at the piece of fabric there, she hadn't even realised she'd picked it up again.

With great care she pulled it out and held it out between them, the raggedy bow tie representing more than it should. All that might have been she supposed... it was like her leaf, full of infinite possibilities. "You should put this back in the wardrobe." She whispered and he hesitated momentarily before letting her drop the scrap of fabric into his hand, both of their eyes on the visible evidence of her grief for the _other_ man.

"Thank you." He replied, closing his fist around it and sliding it into his own pocket, although she wasn't sure if he was thanking her for seemingly accepting him as 'her' Doctor, or for grieving for the other one in the first place. The moment stretched between them and she felt that tension rise again. She understood the symbolism of her gesture just fine, she really didn't want him to comment on it... the irony was, the other him probably wouldn't have even be aware of it, or why it would make her uncomfortable.

"I suppose, as we're confessing our sins, I should give you this then." He slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew his sonic, he held it out to her and she gave him a confused look.

"Why are you giving me your..." she stopped, feeling her heart stop with her. "That's not your sonic." She realised, her eyes almost popping out of her head as she noticed the smaller, sleeker metal design, the distinctly red light and the extra buttons. He extended his hand further to her, the sonic waiting. Clara hesitated, her fingers hovering inches from it. "Why?"

The Doctor huffed. "Why not?" Clara frowned at him, needing a better explanation than that, he looked like she was pulling his teeth. "The TARDIS made it for you... a few weeks ago actually. I, intercepted it." He settled on, looking guilty.

Clara felt a glimmer of understanding beginning; this would mean a bond, a step beyond a mere replaceable Companion; it was a big gesture, maybe one he wasn't ready for. As far as she knew only River had ever been given a sonic, and even then it had been the Doctor's... not her own. Did she want to be on a par with River in his affections? Did she want to be left without a goodbye as was inevitable for everyone that dared to think they meant something to him?

"What I think is irrelevant Clara. The TARDIS wanted you to have this. The sonic's she makes... they contain part of her matrix, a piece of her soul if you will." She still didn't take it overwhelmed by the concept of what Old Blue was giving her, willingly. He grew impatient and slightly exasperated with her refusal. "I assure you, this one is quite unique." Clara felt the implications slide beneath her layer of shock and she extended her fingers letting them slide around the cool metal surface as she finally took the device from him.

The Doctor was smiling, but she wasn't sure it reached his eyes. "I took a peek," he looked sheepish but she wasn't phased, "It's got a brand new operating system, it even does wood." He muttered the cause of his unease presenting itself as he managed to sound just the tiniest bit petulant and Clara tightened her grip on it.

"Thank you." She said it out loud, but she also sent the message out as far as she could into the sentient metal all around them, feeling an answering hum back. She didn't want to dwell on what the Doctor really thought about this, he'd given it to her in the end, he could have kept that information to himself never revealed it and she would never have been any wiser. The fact that he hadn't she thought said enough, it was an admission all of its own just as effectual as any of the ones she'd uttered in her venom filled state.

But as to why the TARDIS had given her it... she could feel the message loud and clear humming through her, _'a counterbalance'._ So clearly the TARDIS didn't entirely trust his judgement just yet and was seeking to level the playing field, give her a way to counteract him if the desperate need arose. The Doctor wasn't stupid, clearly he'd understood his Old Girls gesture and its many implications, of which that was probably only one of many. And he'd still given it to her. _Curiouser and Curiouser_ she stared at him, quietly trying to unwrap this new enigma.

A decision made, it only took a split second for her to lean in and capture his lips, applying gentle pressure to his and surprised to feel the way they trembled. Clara pulled back leaving his surprised mouth as she curled a hand supportively around his damaged ones. "Try not to think so much," she admonished, lifting her thumb to his cheek and smoothing out the lines there, "You'll get more frown lines."

He was watching her, his eyes wide as they tracked her every moment, looking utterly bemused with her acceptance in light of what he clearly saw as his own failure.

"Yes, well." He took her hand back, squeezing it tightly. "Occupational hazard."

Clara smiled softly, "We'll work on that then."

"Don't expect too much of me my dear girl... I might disappoint you."

Clara pushed her swirling thoughts that his words conjured out of her mind for now, focusing on looking after him, which was apparently her job now, even if that meant putting up with his less than winning and more than a little pessimistic personality sometimes. "Well I'm famished, I need something hot and greasy, maybe a full English?" she offered, tucking the sonic into her pocket with care as she turned beaming back at him, two could play at this 'I'm not bothered by all these deep gestures if you're not' game.

"How about you go freshen up and I'll see what I can rustle up in the kitchen." She instructed, hopping up gracefully to her feet and staring back at him expectantly, regretting her fast movement almost instantly as she tried not to wobble on her still slightly weak legs.

"As long as it's not a soufflé." He muttered.

"Hey that's my mother's recipe you're talking about." She cried affronted.

"The recipe's fine." He muttered. "I think your interpretations a little off."

"Everyone's a critic." She bit back.

"Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to help an old man to his feet?" He waved his hands at her and she gave him an exasperated look, he really was a lazy bugger this time around and clearly not above torturing her for the whole 'yours does wood thing' because she knew he'd seen her legs wobble, the man missed nothing. His hands gripped onto hers and she tugged him up to his feet, he looked a little more unsteady than her and she reconsidered if this was just toying with her as she put a hand around his waist, deciding she'd better walk him to the bathroom whether he protested or not.

"I can manage Clara." He tutted, but didn't try and disentangle himself from her she noticed with a small smile.

"I know." She admitted softly. "Maybe I'm not as stable on my legs as I thought, could do with a hand it seems." She teased and they both chose to ignore the truth behind it as he leaned that little harder on her.

"Remind me to put a block in the TARDIS navigation for that planet would you." He muttered as he winced putting one foot in front of the other, she smirked and nodded, helping him slowly down the corridor, feeling a small thrill as the sonic bumped in her pocket... _her_ sonic.


	12. Chapter 12

**(London 1894)**

Victorian London bustled, there was no other word for it and Clara tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell, knowing the Doctor would find it far too amusing as us 'poor humans' couldn't turn off our olfactory senses at will, not without holding their nose at any rate.

It seemed dirtier than she remembered, she may have said that out loud.

"Rose tinted glasses." The Doctor explained unnecessarily, "You've been spoiled by the hypoallergenic 21st Century. Don't worry, things tend to take a turn back to the grimier in another few hundred years when people get bored of the plastic lifelessness... and the allergies."

"Where did Madame Vastra say she wanted to meet us?" Clara tried to just breathe through her mouth, but that seemed almost worse and she gave in, hoping she'd just get accustomed to the stench.

The Doctor glanced at his psychic paper. "The Bull Inn." He muttered, straightening his lapels and touching his bowler hat as if to make sure it was still there; she thought he looked like he belonged in the mob squad rather than Victorian London, but she'd been outvoted, he'd even put white spats on to get into the spirit as he called it, which was fine normally, except the effect when combined with his shiny new Doc Martin-esque boots lost some of its distinguished appeal. Although she found it infinitely better than those awful red suede loafers he'd donned on his first outing.

They hadn't mentioned the planet of the Sex Spiders or its aftermath for going on a whole week now, which she was starting to think was probably for the best, at least for her potential impending heartbreak. It had all been business as usual, he'd been his usual gruff and grouchy self. But none of it altered the small slip of metal sonic that was now concealed somewhat dangerously within the cleavage of her distinctive Victorian dress, because unlike the doctor she didn't usually walk around with infinite pockets. Although she was extremely tempted to take him up on his offer of a handbag that was bigger on the inside. That small piece of metal was proof that despite all outward appearances, everything had changed between them.

"Doctor." She asked, not distracting him from the way he was scanning his eyes over the occasional drunken patron emerging from the dingy looking Inn ahead of them.

"Hmm?" He sounded out, clearly waiting for something his arms crossed as he drummed out a pattern that resembled his twin heart beat with his fingers against his arms. She'd attempted to get a glimpse of the psychic paper but he'd been a little too cagey about sharing the details with her.

"What if I run into the Latimer family?" he didn't respond, but that in and of itself was something of an answer, but she wasn't going to let his unease for dealing with the death of her 'other' self potentially cause distress for an entire family. "Those kids went through enough and seeing me, I'd be concerned about stirring up old memories... or scaring them half to death. I'm a ghost to them after all."

The Doctor turned slightly giving her a slow look, his hand briefly brushed her arm before falling away like her touch burned and she imagined he was trying to be comforting, it would have been more effective if he wasn't so determined to distance himself physically from her since that fateful morning. Clearly he really was too afraid of her breaking both his hearts, fortunately for him she was a slow learner and never had been good with his rules.

"I checked." He replied his voice softening a fraction with the admission, "They moved away from London," she gave him a questioning look, people didn't just up and move sticks without a reason, not in this day and age when their fortune and business was in the City. He sighed, his hand touching his brow briefly, a gesture that was entirely his own, "The children were unable to adapt I believe to your loss, they were disturbed by the events here, I suppose living ice would be unnerving. Captain Latimer took them to the coast."

Clara nodded, feeling oddly guilty, it hadn't been her that had died on them after all, but it still felt like her responsibility to look after them. What was more interesting was that the Doctor had bothered to check... that he'd have even considered the families feelings on the matter of her materialising alive and well in their midst again. She took it as a positive sign. Perhaps she was wrong maybe he wasn't suppressing everything that had happened, or the feelings it had unmasked, but she liked to think that it had affected him for the better, even if he was considering other people if only for her sake.

"Thank you." She told him quietly, linking her arm in his and sharing his eye line as she tried to spot what he was looking for in the throng of people emerging onto the street.

"Don't mention it." He replied, looking sideways at her, "Besides you won't be so pleased with me when you find out why we are here." He didn't try to slip his arm out of hers and she slid closer feeling a small thrill of success.

"Jack the Ripper?" she offered and he froze, turning to give her a calculated look.

"You peeked?" he sounded like a disappointed toddler around Christmas time.

She rolled her eyes. "It Victorian London, I took a stab in the dark."

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her in surprise. "Actually you're half right, although Jack the Ripper was active several years before our current point, our mutual friend Madame Vastra was forced to intercede and... eat the notorious serial killer on the behest of Scotland Yard. I do believe she found him to be somewhat stringy."

Clara winced and tried not to feel a little sick at that, Vastra was unnervingly alien at times, considering she was born on Earth. "So if he's dead, why are we here? She definitely said Jack the Ripper?" Clara questioned and he handed the psychic paper to her with a flourish.

"Curious, I know, why else do you think I accepted." He gave her a small smile and Clara stared at the distinctive penmanship that had once sent her into unconsciousness to join a psychic cross-time Teleconference. _'Doctor, you assistance is required concerning Jack the Ripper. London 1894, July 10__th__, Whitechapel, the Bull Inn.'_

Clara rolled her eyes. "Probably because Vastra got the wrong man, he's going to turn out to be some horrific alien shape-changing menace that we have to eradicate, including all evidence of what he did here."

The Doctor's hand slid to her cheek and he tilted her face up to him, giving her a concerned look. "So embittered and bored of this predictable tale already?" he smirked and she realised how like him she'd sounded, with effort she smiled. "My dear just say the word and we need never bother with Earth again, there are billions of alien worlds out there ripe for exploration. We still never made Berratil." His thumb brushed her cheek and she almost closed her eyes at the sensation which stirred the feelings ignited by the venom far too easily now, ok right, that was why he also didn't touch her as often, she tended to get easily distracted. It almost worked to; she could feel his proximity fogging her mind... but he was here for an old friend, someone that meant a lot to both of them, what kind of moral compass would she be if she didn't force him to see it through.

Leaning her head back and taking her skin out of his reach she forced a smile. "Sounds fascinating." he snorted back at her rolling his eyes and clearly not buying it.

"Be careful dear, your age is starting to show." He tutted, tugging her along with him arm in arm as they headed towards a dim dark alley. That or she was just spending too much time with him, although she chose not share that disturbing thought.

"For the record if any of your plan involves using me as bait for this foul creature then I promise you I will not be pleased." She teased, only half joking.

The Doctor's expression grew fierce and she realised she'd clearly struck a nerve there in appearing to think so little of him. He turned his expression a scowl and she raised her finger to his lips, silencing him. "I was joking." She assured him. "But perhaps we should wait for Madame Vastra, I don't feel like being surprised by the ghost of Jack the Ripper."

The Doctor met her gaze coolly, his expression softening a fraction as she let her finger graze down his chin, the moment lengthening as she couldn't bring herself to break that soul bearing gaze of his.

Someone cleared their throat and Clara dropped her hand quickly as if burned, spinning around to face the accusation. "Well, Clara, won't you introduce me to your new friend?" Madam Vastra's voice rang out through the alley.

Clara opened her mouth to explain and saw the smirk curl Vastra's scaled lips. She stalked forwards, her eyes on the Doctor. "So, I take it you found Trenzalore after all." Clara flinched, the Doctor didn't.

The Doctor stepped forward, his hand out stiffly. "My dear Madame Vastra, such a pleasure and I do believe with these eyes you look greener than ever." She slid her hand into his and he kissed the back of it formerly, not commenting on her astute observation, clearly his years of brooding on her turf had afforded her more than a little insight into what had been eating him during that period.

"Oh my, a silver fox this time Doctor. Positively delicious." The Doctor tipped his hat to her and Clara had only a moment to prepare herself as the disturbingly strong lizard woman from the dawn of time embraced her in a fierce hug.

"How are you my dear, are you recovered?" Clara nodded, trying not to think too hard about the state she'd been in when the Doctor had pulled her out of his time stream. Madam Vastra, Jenny and especially Strax had spent close to a month helping her through her sleepless nights as she awoke screaming convinced she was someone else, reliving death after death. The Doctor had done his best, but at the time he had been a difficult presence to bare given how much of her nightmares had currently involved either the loss of him, or his blinding indifference to her presence.

"I'm good. All better." Clara smiled in what she thought was a convincing enough manner, Vastra linked an arm with her.

"Yes, well Strax will be the judge of that, between the two of us I think he quite enjoys the chance to play nurse maid and you were a particularly challenging patient for him." Vastra was speaking to her but Clara got the distinct impression that she was taking in the measure of the man that was walking a step behind them.

"And this new Doctor. Has he got his training wheels off yet? I can practically smell the regeneration fresh on him." She seemed to taste the air disdainfully.

"The new Doctor is fine and in possession of remarkably good hearing, even several paces apart as we are." The Doctor challenged.

Vastra looked over her shoulder at him. "An angry Scot... oh Strax will be so pleased, it's not even his weekend off."

Clara stifled a snigger at the Doctor's deeply un-amused look.

"Did you call us here just to chit chat my dear, or was there a case that even the great Victorian Veiled Detective can't solve?" His bark was definitely out in full force, Clara didn't particularly want him to show his bite just yet.

Vastra seemed undaunted by it, her smile widening as she took him in, before drawing her veil over her face and leading them back through the alley, away from the Bull's Inn Clara noted. "It seems that the infamous Jack the Ripper may be alive and well."

Clara tried not to give him an 'I told you so look' so she kept her head down, watching her feet.

Vastra continued apparently undaunted by their lack of enthusiasm. "Although my methods are... meticulous, even a great detective can on occasion be fooled, and with this particular case I believe there has been some masterful misdirection involved."

"So you ate the wrong man?" the Doctor asked innocently enough, but Clara could see the amusement there, dark as it was, she shouldn't have found it funny either she told herself, suppressing a smirk at the uncomfortable shifting Madame Vastra was now doing.

"I ate a killer." She hurrumphed. "I apparently ate a 'different' killer to the one I was expecting." They clearly looked unconvinced because she hissed. "I caught the beast red-handed, literally with his blade buried in the gut of poor Mary Kelly. Even a half rate Detective could have deduced murder in that instance."

Clara patted her hand, trying to draw her attention away from the smirking Doctor, after all, they were talking about the death of a woman, however far in the past it seemed to her and the Doctor it was very real in the here and now. "What makes you think he's back now."

"There have been other cases through the years... other reports, copy cats and poor Detective work making links where there aren't any in most cases but," she paused looking uneasy, "there is something stalking Whitechapel. Something I can feel behind my every step. I can taste it in the air... a fear, just like back then."

"You're describing a ghost." Clara pointed out, starting to wonder if she'd been far off the mark with her comment to the Doctor before.

"No... this, it is something in the corner of my eye." Vastra explained.

The Doctor looked faintly interested by that. "I'll admit, there is an unusual... resonance." He admitted looking down the alleys back and forth that Vastra had led them down.

Clara turned looking into the shadows. "Like your being watched."

"Have there been any deaths?" The Doctor pressed.

"Yes. But nothing with his particular style." Vastra sighed. "Doctor... I am concerned not with ghosts but perhaps the _idea_ of one. That fear itself might have taken route along this street."

The Doctor lifted an eyebrow and pulled out his sonic, pointing it into the darkest corner, and then turning to look slowly out of the corner of his eye. Clara didn't like that look he was wearing, pulling her own sonic it out she flipped it into the same corner, not entirely trusting him to tell her what it had revealed. The information resonated and rebounded through the short wave telepathic field it generated, imprinting on her cerebral cortex and making her wish she'd left well enough alone. Clara backed up quickly putting distance between her and the dark shadows, until she hit something solid and warm. The Doctor was scowling down at her, his hands on her shoulders.

"I vote we get out of the dark alley." Clara hissed, not taking her eyes off the shadows.

"You have a sonic." Madame Vastra pointed out, looking more than a little shocked by the revelation and not enough bothered by their whitened faces.

"Yes, long story." Clara stalked forwards, content to lead the way, so long as the way was out of the deep dark alley. "Let's get a move on shall we. Bit nippy out here." She added rubbing her hands together and trying to push the fear away with false bravado and a cheery disposition.

"What is it Doctor?" Vastra asked, hurrying along beside them. "What's hunting here?"

"Your Detective skills my dear are quite astute. There is a tear in the fabric of reality back there, and I'm afraid that the psychic energies and fears fuelled by the Whitechapel murders may have allowed something to coalesce."

"Something like Jack the Ripper?"

Clara gave the Doctor a look, cursing herself for opening her big mouth and jinxing them, he didn't need her help for that at the moment. "Something like Jack the Ripper, armed with the worst fears and nightmares of every poor soul that's passed down this alley." Clara elaborated.

"Imagine a psychic vampire." The Doctor added, which didn't make it sound any better in Clara's opinion. But he was smiling, that manic glint back in his eye which she had to admit she'd missed. "You see Clara, I knew this wouldn't be dull." He grinned at Vastra. "Your adventures never are."


	13. Chapter 13

The Doctor ran, his older knees creaking with the effort, but he didn't care, his sonic was in his hand and for the first time in some regenerations, he felt as though a gun might have been preferable, but in this instance when fighting a malevolent psychic essence, a sonic screwdriver was essentially the same thing. The creature was a curious sentience, born of the fears and dark thoughts of the good people of Whitechapel; no form, just intent and a malicious one at that. If ever there was a case of you are what you eat... he wondered if the creature had found Jack's essence as stringy as Vastra had found his flesh.

But all of his thoughts ceased into one urgent fact that dominated his being as he forced his legs faster. It was going for Clara. The destination of the thing was obvious to him now, the question as to why was also blindingly obvious... she'd let down the walls he'd so painstakingly helped her build inside her mind when she'd first emerged from his time-stream. Damn her! He felt the rage fuelled by the flood of adrenalin as panic raced through him, she was acting as bait for this monstrous creature, just like he'd promised her she would never have to.

He could imagine how she looked to the creature, a blinding beacon lit by lifetimes of fear, pain, death, the very thing to feed it's nightmare driven existence all swirling together inside one gloriously inoffensive little package. The perfect camouflage for it to continue its dark works.

The Doctor felt the air heaving through his lungs as he shouted her name, it left his lips like a raw prayer and she turned, spinning on both him and the swirling ball of plasma that was heading straight for her, her eyes widening in surprise. Then they narrowed and she set her feet, unmoving, waiting, inviting it in.

In that moment the Doctor knew with certainty what he had before only suspected; that the creature would not simply devour her nightmares, suck her soul for the darkness it could feast on inside her many many tortured lives and simply leave her the whimpering mess as it had the others. No, it would sit inside of her growing fat and repugnant, feasting until she was a hollowed out shell for however long it took. _Possession _was its plan.

But for all his intelligence all his scheming and planning, he wasn't fast enough. It hit her in the chest and he felt the roar of utter rage leave him as he forced his aged body to run faster, harder, run like it had never run before; his hand outstretched the sonic blasting his instructions before it was even within range in sheer desperation.

Clara crumpled and he saw the moment she was no longer herself, the moment the creature was there, it lifted her head like a puppet on a string, her beautiful face twisting into something infinitely darker as it sneered back at him. But the creature wasn't smart... vile, cruel, cunning yes, but not smart in the traditional sense. That was why it conjured a knife, wasting vital energy to coalesce the object into being, not realising it had a weapon far more potent inches from its grasp in her sonic twinned as it was, to his. The Doctor's smile was savage, he would win and then he would make it suffer.

Her usually wickedly inviting lips became simply wicked as he crashed to a halt in front of her, his sonic aimed at her chest as she looked back at him from behind her dark sinfully attractive eyes. "Watcha Doctor," the voice was hers but the accent, the tone belonged to something entirely different, the knife was in her hand, pointing at his chest just as solid now as his sonic. "Come to rescue your sweet little lass?" It's laugh was like nails on a chalk board as it stalked forward, the blade flashing and the Doctor darted back away, his clever eyes tracking the movement and finding it was manipulating her motor functions without so much as a fraction of a second delay.

"Leave her and I might consider being merciful." The Doctor bit out, certain it was not a promise he could live up to as he circled the creature, his sonic in hand as he reached behind to check on the object he had procured for this moment. Granted he hadn't expected it to be used whilst avoiding being carved up by his own Companion, but such was life.

"Oh I don't know." The creature trilled, forcing her hands to trace the outline of her body in the parody of caress, her more than appealing form clearly to its taste. "I could do things with a body like this." It licked her lips and the Doctor tried not to let his anger force him into a foolish mistake. The plan would still work, if he could just hold his temper in check. "But this mind..." the creature looked up through her lashes at him and he could see her in there, trapped behind its foulness, screaming at him. "This mind will nourish me for a long, long time. So many dark little crevices with every kind of wicked little memory buried inside, waiting for me to pull them out and play with."

The Doctor darted forward, blocking the knife he saw swing for him before it had a chance to connect, his hand went around the offending wrist and slammed it back into the wall with a crack, but the hiss of pain was all Clara and he struggled to hold fast as he shoved the sonic beneath her chin, holding her squirming and unnaturally strong form in place with his own body. There was no danger of the creature possessing him in such a way and it pained him that his Clara was so desperately fragile when it came to such attacks, perhaps more so than other humans even, his fault too of course.

"I will not tell you again." He snarled into its face, seeing only her. "Leave her now!"

The creature shifted her body against him provocatively and it might have worked save for the righteous fury that was beyond all reason coursing inside of him in this moment. "Such a pretty little thing ain't she Doctor." It darted her tongue out, delivering a long slow lick across his throat, forcing him to drive his sonic up into hers and prevent the flash of teeth he felt graze him from tearing a chunk out of his skin. The creature chuckled darkly from within her, giving it her exact sound and twisting his hearts that little bit further to know just how _present_ she was inside of it, helpless. "Do you know how many men she will lure to their slow pitiless ends with me in control?" it taunted, it's free hand sliding down to try those same talents on him now.

The Doctor drove the sonic in further to her throat in warning, it rounded her large brown eyes on him. "You won't." It hissed certain. "If you think I'll leave her without a fight you are sorely mistaken, I'll make such a mess in here you won't be able to piece her fragile mind back together this time old man." It swore and the Doctor fought to remain resolute, "I'll claw and bite, I'll make her suffer terribly for every piece of me you unfurl." It wasn't lying, the Doctor knew that, but what choice was there.

His momentary indecision broke his concentration and the creature twisted her, breaking his hold on her wrist and attempting to wrap those small hands of hers, clawed now into talons around his throat. He reacted, a reaction he hadn't drawn on since his third face, his elbow slamming up into her face, he didn't need to see to know that her eye would bloom with bruises the next day, a smirk curled her face and it licked the blood that dripped from her damaged lip.

"So violent Doctor." It tutted at him through a smirk, "I could make her enjoy that for you, if that's what you want... In fact I'm sure one of her little _other-_selves did. I could introduce you two?" It sneered as the Doctor tried to wrestle her form back against the wall, pinning those talon-like hands with one of his. The sonic was in his hand again poised to act, the Doctor stared into that face, his Clara, utterly void of her now, twisted into something vile just itching to tear this world apart, to spread its malevolent reach across the globe using her as its home base. He couldn't let it. Not because he cared for the world or for this creature's sinister intents. But because he couldn't let her be the face it chose to do it in. He wouldn't lose her.

The sonic hit and the sounds she made as he clung to her, whispering his empty promises, became imprinted on his hearts like scar tissue that he knew would never leave him. He pulled the crystal ball he'd filled full of the temporal rifts own energy out of his pocket and pressed it against her chest, right over heart, drawing the creature out like venom from a wound. The force of the sonic set to the matching frequency of the rift wave after wave rippling through her, like a shepherd dog... biting at its ankles, chasing the monster onwards. But Clara was the sieve and it was filtering through her, every pore and every cell of her being, tearing and clawing just as it had promised.

Her screams echoed down the dark alley and the Doctor held her, his lips pressed to her temple, his mind against all his better judgements forcing inside, buffeting against the vile malevolence clinging on like a limpet. Every ounce of what he was, the monster he himself could be lashed at it, slashing its bonds to the memories that were giving the creature sustenance, some of the memories would never recover, he knew. But better to lose the memory of a life that wasn't hers, than her herself. The creature reached for him in desperation and the Doctor swatted it like the fly it was compared to his own malevolence, his own cruelty the horrors he had seen and the many wonders... he was a God compared to this soulless parasite and he struck at it with all the fury of one scorned.

The creature coalesced slinking from her form like the coward it was, its meal ticket stolen by the bigger, angrier monster and the Doctor curled his fist around the crystal ball feeling its essence railing within. It was out.

With care he held her body upright, her breath coming in broken choked sounds around her sobs. She was trying to be brave, trying to make sense of its monstrous intent for her, but there were memories haemorrhaging inside of her, nightmares of her own coalescing. The Doctor soothed as best he could, his presence sliding through her trying to repair the damage it had done, re-walling up memories, cauterising others that simply refused to go back. A patchwork person that's what she would be if he failed. "Clara, my Clara." He breathed, drawing out and reinforcing the memories from the 'real' her with his own shared experiences, making them the centre of her being once more.

Clara responded as only she could to his mental coaxing, she followed his lead, her gentle hands taking over where his brutish ones failed as she repaired the damage he led her to. Practice makes perfect he acknowledged as he watched her work from within her own mind they had spent so long like this right here in Victorian London not so long ago for her. He had no idea how much of that time she remembered, the days, nights, he'd spend coaxing the real her back into the light. Painstakingly relearning with her what was her and what was an Echo. He knew her mind better than he had known any others and restoring it had become a work of art to him.

"I'm ok." She whispered with her own lips, her own voice as her head dropped to his chest. So tired as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her fast the crystal ball still gripped firmly in his hand as he fought to simply not crush the thing to dust.

The Doctor relinquished her mind to her own care, drawing back so that he could see her eyes as he lifted her chin to show them to him. She blinked back tears, her right eye was swelling and darkening already, her lip was split and the sight twisted something darker in him. His face must have revealed it because her hands caught his face, forcing him to stay.

"I'm sorry." She tried to excuse it, to placate him, her face almost breaking his hearts afresh, but her reckless decision, made without him, with no thought to what it would do to him was not an act he could simply forgive. "Doctor?" Her voice broke and he didn't relent, his body stiff and unresponsive as he fought back his rage with her for what she had forced him into. But she was here and whole and the relief drove his lips against hers, he crushed her back against the wall, not caring as her body trembled still shocked by what it had experienced. He bit down on the lip he'd damaged and she hissed, bucking against him in surprise as he tasted the bitter tang of her blood against his tongue. This was what she unleashed him in. This was the beast she drove him to be.

"I'm sorry, I'm fine." Her voice was a litany against his skin as she repeated those words over and over, peppering his face with kisses. The first real ones she'd ever offered him outside of her venom induced state or his, the one she had offered whilst he sat there lamenting like a foolish old man still weakened from its effects, had been all too brief and his mind too addled to appreciate. He should have been able to welcome and savour her touch, the way her body pressed against his, her arms around his neck, her breath ghosting over his skin behind such soft lips. But his anger was too fresh, his fear too real and he shoved her away violently, clutching at his head and turning his back on her as he tried to calm himself.

"I could have lost you!" He snarled, turning at her his finger pointing accusingly, he held up the crystal ball containing the swirling essence of the creature that had so nearly made it happen.

"You didn't, I'm fine." Her hands were up placating, the tremble to them unmistakable and he glanced away knowing that her fear was not entirely just for the creature. "Doctor please look at me." She pleaded, and he couldn't deny her, he let her see the pain, the fury her actions had unleashed in him. "It had to be stopped." She tried and he darted forward, his hand going over her mouth, forcefully stopping that argument before she could voice it.

There eyes met, stone grey and golden brown, most men would submit to those eyes he realised, but then he supposed he wasn't most men and his rage was legendary. "Don't you dare." He bit out, "Don't you dare try and justify this. You could have died... or worse, been a host for this thing, its atrocities becoming yours for centuries." Tears blossomed in her eyes and he couldn't find it in him to relent. "What could possibly have been worth that risk?" he snarled leaning in close so that she could read his meaning clearly. They'd had this argument before and he hadn't bought into her ideas on it being worth the risk then and he didn't now.

She tore his hand from her mouth, her expression scathing and he braced himself. "_You_! That's what." She snarled the fire he so admired flaring for him now.

"I was never at risk of this thing." He declared flippantly, his estimation of her plummeting.

Clara slapped him, hard. He felt it rock his head back and he turned confused back. What had he missed? He felt his breathing quicken, she always surprised him with the force, the fury she could put behind her palm.

"You arrogant bastard!" She hissed. "You were at risk of everything. It might not have been able to possess you, but you were at risk of something far worse. Of losing yourself, your reputation, your very purpose." She turned away from him and he knew there were fresh tears sliding down her face.

"I would have caught him in the end." He bit back, affronted that she thought so little of him.

"And how many would have died?" she jabbed him in the chest. "You were too damn cautious, too afraid to risk any of us. I did what I had to make you act. To make you engage like the Doctor I know you are, I made you fix it!"

The Doctor stared back at her, her argument swirling around inside of him and settling unpleasantly. She had done this for him. Not for the people of Whitechapel, or for anything nobler. For him. It didn't sit well.

He stalked forward grabbing her by her arms. "Promise me you won't do something so foolish, ever again." He knew his grip was too tight, his expression too fierce but he couldn't school it.

Clara stared back at him, her expression a mix of sorrow and fury. "No." She snapped back. "I won't make empty promises just to make you feel better. I will always force you to confront yourself, to be the better man, or what is the point of me?"

"Stop this." He snarled, all but shaking her in his desperation to make her see sense.

"I will, when you stop needing me to." A sob broke through and her argument was so sound, so perfect that he dropped his head to hers, feeling tears in his own eyes that were born of frustration and the real fear of losing her.

"Please," he breathed, "I can't lose you, not now." It was the most honest admission he could offer and he felt her hand hesitantly go to the back of his head, her gentle hands soothing the nape of his neck her touch sending small jolts of electricity through his scalp.

"You won't." She sighed, "That's the point, if you be the man we know you are, the man I saw tonight, how can you possibly lose?"

"Clara." He drew back looking at her desperately, he wanted to explain it wasn't always that way, that sometimes he tried and lost... it was why he was the damaged creature she saw before her.

"Feeling something is not a weakness." She offered not letting him say it, "For you it has always been a strength." He found himself heartedly disagreed with that, some of his worst mistakes were born of emotion.

But he succumbed to them again, kissing her softly, his lips exploring hers, feeling her sink into his embrace as he deepened the kiss, trying to explain to her in actions what she was simply not understanding with words. "I have never been this weak before." He broke away whispering his confession into her skin, as close to the words he knew he didn't need to say to her as he thought he might ever come. "There are wounds a man can bear and those he can't. The shadow of the wound you will create haunts me."

Clara's hand brushed across his face and he felt her answering fear and her utter determination in spite of it. This was why he always chose a human Companion, they were reckless in their bravery in everything, even matters of the heart. "Living in fear of something ending is no way to live Doctor, for either of us. Everything ends you taught me that. We have to be brave enough to make the most of it in the here and now."

The Doctor released her stepping away and pocketing the crystal ball, she was right of course, but then she usually was, it didn't make it any easier. "I have told you before Clara, you expect too much of me."

Clara made to move and wobbled slightly, he caught her around the waist, placing her firmly on her feet and not relinquishing his hold on her until he got her back to the others who had been waylaid by the mess the creature had made in the Inn a few streets over. "We'll see." She promised him cryptically a determined look on her face and he found himself hoping she was right, because the way he felt right now... he couldn't imagine ever being in a position where he might be ok with risking her, let alone losing her.


	14. Chapter 14

The Doctor eased himself down in to the wicker furniture in Vastra's green room, the crystal ball in his hands as he observed it with no small amount of vindictive pleasure, watching the pale coalescent shimmering of the sentient malevolence swirl within, trapped. He pocketed it intending to place it in his own archives for further study when he returned to the TARDIS just in case, one dark rainy day, he ever had a use for it.

Clara was shaken despite her attempts to hide it and he wished it had been entirely from her encounter with the entity but he suspected much of her current state was his fault. Strax was taking care of her, which would give him enough time to wrestle with his own demons until he felt calm enough to face the others.

There was a quiet knock on the open door, Clara knew better than to bother him so he was not surprised when Vastra entered and sat down opposite him pouring herself a glass of deep red liquid from the decanter placed waiting on the table beside it. The scent made his nose prickle in distaste but he made no comment. She stared at him, as if waiting for him to confess his sins. He didn't oblige.

"Do you not think you're being perhaps a little harsh with Miss Clara. Her actions were after all instrumental in our success. I for one think bravery like she demonstrated should be commended." Her admiration for the girl who wasn't quite the Clara she first knew only seemed to increase with every moment the spent together, if it wasn't currently disrupting his peace he might have considered it endearing.

The Doctor narrowed his vision, observing her closely and wondering if her instincts for self preservation were weakening with this comfy home life of hers, because clearly her powers of observation had not, she had obviously been privy to their confrontation, it irritated him that his privacy even in an open alley like that had been violated. "She had no right to risk her life." His words were laced with ice and he dared Vastra to sit there and challenge him.

Vastra pursed her lips looking sour as she placed the glass down, her eyes flashing with indignance at him, accepting the challenge as he knew she would. "It is _her_ life, that makes it her right."

The Doctor lifted his hands pressing the fingers together and tried to maintain his calm as he looked over the tips of them at his old friend. "Her life is now bound to mine. Her decisions become my consequences. She had no right to risk her life; that is not a consequence I can accept." The same meaning if more eloquent words than those he'd given to Clara.

Clara's arguments on this issue of course were sound and still rung through him, that if he never risked anything nothing would be worth a damn thing... shame it hadn't really sunk in, she would be so disappointed with him he realised. But what she couldn't understand was that all those rational, noble arguments evaporated with the idea of risking her, he couldn't understand why that wasn't blindingly obvious to them all. As far as weaknesses went, he imagined it was a significant one that would prove a challenge given his ability to masterfully place his Companions in mortal peril on a regular basis.

Vastra blinked at his succinct answer and he was amused to note that he could surprise her still. Or himself he noted.

"Clara is an intelligent, brave and wilful young woman Doctor, do you really think you could ever suppose to stop her from doing anything she has set her mind too?" Her question prickled him and she knew it if her satisfied little nod said anything.

"Stubborn and obstinate are better descriptions." The Doctor snapped, his anger at the woman who's thought seemed to consume his every waking minute not abating but perhaps starting to shift to the lizard woman before him, which no doubt was her intention.

"Yes well," Vastra sighed, "I imagine that is a trait that has suited her well to a life with you Doctor."

The Doctor huffed and he supposed he had to concede that. "I am not the man I was," he admitted "I cannot be and I cannot allow the weaknesses of my predecessor to infect this life."

"Weaknesses?" Vastra queried seemingly content in her role as confessor, as she crossed one leg over the other, her hands placed primly there, quietly waiting for him to expose more of himself to her insatiable appetite for detail.

The Doctor closed his mouth, the irony of his own weakness laid bare for her now. That was a skill of the last face at least, not to wear his heart on his sleeve... to lie. He would need to relearn that particular trait. But the other traits, the meek acceptance of the loss of friends, of family... to wail petulantly against the impending inevitability of his fate. That would never be _his_ way.

The Doctor he had been for several faces now had allowed others to take risks for him, giving half hearted attempts at stopping them, unknowing how their wilful indifference to their fates because of him would hang around him like a noose for centuries to come. Then there was the last faces bloody minded denial and fear of what his twin hearts had felt for his delectable new young companion... that would certainly not be his way, Clara was right about one thing, he could not deny what he felt in the here and now.

"I must say Doctor your intentions towards the young Clara seem far less honourable this time round." Vastra's tone was a warning and the Doctor chose to ignore it not intimidated by the Lizard woman in the slightest, despite her formidable reputation, but he grew irritated by her presumption. He owed her and her family a great debt, a debt of kindness, which was something at least in this face he was not ever sure he would be able to repay, so he chose to consider this dance of theirs, to give her the answers she sought. Although he would hardly have called it a kindness to reveal what was within him now.

"And what would you know of my previous self's intentions? His voice held every bit of the warning hers had and her eyes widened in surprise in what she believed had been her ease in provoking a response.

"Only what you let us see." Vastra's smile was cutting and he knew that this was why he had trusted her judgement, she knew exactly what game he was playing with her now and was dancing along merrily beside him.

"Clara is my concern." He intoned, emphasising all that was unsaid in that admission.

"Hasn't she always been?" Vastra's retort was smooth, as knowing as her smirk.

"Do you disapprove of me Madame? Do you fear I am as Clara believes, painted a darker shade this time?" he taunted standing and sauntering forwards his dark frock coat swishing so that it revealed the flash of red beneath, using his height to impose now that he felt his advantage in the game of riddles tilting in her favour.

Vastra's smirk turned into something less amused as she stood to meet him. "My dear Doctor, you have always been a darker shade, you merely used to pretend otherwise for the sake of those who believed in you."

The Doctor felt the implication like the slap she'd intended and he fought not to merely bark back that he had never asked for their belief. He took a calming breath, eyeing her with a resolute stare. "I will not give her up if that is what you are making your roundabout way to asking." _Never, not even to save myself._

"Of course not, that would be the honourable thing to do." Vastra's reply was cutting and the Doctor felt it to the quick.

"I need her." He argued, knowing how petulant it sounded even to his own ears, it seemed to prove her point quite eloquently so he squashed the impulse to say that it was more than just need, it was _want _to.

Vastra sighed, her hands wringing together, the first indication that this conversation actually held a deeper implication for her. "And the Universe needs you." She pleaded and he heard the new desperation in it. "I have no wish to watch Jenny die, or Strax disintegrate... or the stars go out ever again." Her eyes pooled for a moment and he found himself fascinated that she had come to care so deeply for her companions; it was so very against her own nature. "Your actions matter, your life and your choices matter." She was up close now, her eyes boring into him trying to force her words to resonate with him, as if she could shake him loose of this new temperament merely with the force of them. The hypocrisy of the woman who had once demanded Clara plead a similar argument to her using single word, because in many words lay lies, was apparent to him now.

His retort was simple, reflexive. "I have that life because of her, her choices matter, _her_ life matters." It didn't matter that without the Great Intelligence's interference Clara wouldn't have needed to intercede and put his life back in place, that it always _should_ have been his life. What mattered was she had done it in any time-line. That was a debt that no amount of wibbly wobbly timey wimey science brought about by his non-death at Trenzalore would change, it was just something he felt deep into his marrow.

"And what would you do to protect that life Doctor? What would you let slide, how many worlds would you leave to their fate because you can't bear to risk her, or let her risk herself?"

"I have done enough, risked enough, lost far too much." He spat, stalking into her until their faces were close enough that their noses almost touched as he repressed the urge to choke the life from her. Anything to stop her from saying the words that had begun to eat at him with realisation the moment he had watched his precious Clara take hold of the TARDIS and save him, because he couldn't have piloted his ship, not in that moment. She had thought it all a test, a manipulation, in no small part because of his implication, but he had failed, failed in that moment and she had been there, like always to pull him through.

He recognised that he had lost this battle of wills, exposed himself like a raw nerve, let her dig deeper than he'd intended, but Clara was that nerve now, so he was explicitly clear about it. "I will not give her up, not now, not ever. Not whilst there is breath in this body." He swore, loathing that his own anger prevented him from keeping his dark thoughts to himself when so crudely provoked.

Vastra gave him a cold reptilian stare that only a flicker of her anger seemed to breach. "Then let us hope, for the sake of us all, that your next body has more sense." A sliver of pity cracked her exterior and he hated the sight of it. "You cannot love a mortal woman without it destroying you Doctor." She lectured and he stiffened as she hit that particular nerve all over again.

"She is no more mortal than I am. Out there, in the stars there are a million different versions of her, waiting for me to find. I will lose the original, I know that, but not now, not here!" The thought was an agony he couldn't face, would put off for as long as he knew how, but it was inevitable and it pained his very existence. "Clara is perfect for me, perfect in every way." He snarled, repeating that foppish fool's words and knowing with his every fibre they were more true now than they had ever been. "An echo of perfection will be more than good enough." _It has to be_. It was the only solution he had come up with to Clara's challenge, how to lessen the fear of losing her so that he could act in the here and now.

Vastra's scorn was clear. "That is your plan then, to chase her echoes for all eternity?"

"Yes." He spat out, the hate for himself and the fates stirring the moment these new eyes had looked into Clara's big wide brown ones, still wet with tears of grief for him. He'd suspected then in that instant that he'd spend his existence doing exactly this... chasing her ghost. He was angry, furious even this regeneration and she was the cause; because she had to end and he couldn't let her.

"I am truly sorry Doctor." Vastra lifted her hand to his cheek and he slapped it away.

"I do not need your pity." He snarled. "There was no other way for me, no other choice except her. Her humanity, her frailty, her bravery in spite of it... the wonder of the way she sees things, that smile even faced with the darkest recesses of the Universe. That is what I need and yet those same things doom her. She is wondrous, enough to keep me guessing for lifetimes. It would be madness to let that go." It was the same argument he'd had with himself over Rose, the same doomed inevitability of it that had left him twisted, shying away from that kind of feeling again. But where Rose had been torn away from him before he ever had to find it in him to push her, with Clara there was a chance, even if it was just a sliver of one, that he might be able to keep her.

"And would she feel the same Doctor? Replaceable, version after version. Your inability to grieve for one before you found another, never facing the truth... that the real Clara, was gone."

"It is not a perfect Universe." He snarled. "A man must make do with the small pleasures he can find."

"Then it is not you I pity, but her." Vastra replied, looking as close to despair with him as he had ever seen her, even during his dark times when she had never once questioned to his face his slip into apathy. "The shadow of you will stalk this woman through the Universe, through all of time and space. And what if she refuses you Doctor, what then, what will you become if you cannot convince her to fly away with a mad man in a box?" her accusation rang through the glass.

The Doctor felt his fist curl and he hit himself violently in the leg letting out a roar of frustration that had Vastra taking a cautious step back, her hands up, ready to defend herself should the need arise. He straightened, feeling his breathing quicken. "My Clara would never say no, not to me, they are all her, all the same recipe, just as curious, just as brilliant... just as eager to see the stars I'll show her."

But even as he said it the Doctor felt his breath catch as his heart hammered wildly a cold chill racing through him as he remembered the moment his Clara had been offered this life.

She had said no.

The Echoes had all said yes, gleefully gladly. Oswin had demanded he show her the stars, the Governess who was really a barmaid had chased him into his own box and folded her hand with joy around the key he placed there.

But the real her, his Clara, she had refused to fly away with him in his 'snogbox'. It was he that had pursued her from the start, frightened and intrigued her forcing his way into her life, dragging her into his box by her hand for the first time. And when he had asked she'd told him to ask again tomorrow. But she hadn't said yes the next day, or the next, or the next. It had taken him weeks of asking, every Wednesday that he had skipped to back to back, furtive in his desperation to understand her enigma, until he'd finally got her to step all the way into the console room and she'd finally relinquished, and expectantly waited for him to live up to his promise and show her something awesome. But only one day a week, a part time companion, never willing to let him become her entire life as all the others had.

But the recipe had changed. He had to believe it; he had altered the original, that's why her echoes had all been willing to go with him, because when _his Clara _stepped into his time-stream she'd done it willingly, for him, that intent had gotten mixed in to the rest of them. Even still it was a manipulation of his own making whether he'd known it at the time or not.

He knew what he was, he was a selfish old man that had forced fate to intervene in a girl's life, to make it what he needed her to be for him. A constant.

In that moment he knew he was as monstrous as Simeon had claimed, because he couldn't find it in him to regret it, to wish it away. And a part of him, a relatively dominant part, was proud of the foresight, of his ability to fight back at the Universe and take something for himself in spite of it.

A selfish old man with a box. It was how he'd started his journey and he found it oddly poetic that he would find himself full circle, apparently having learnt absolutely nothing. Surprisingly he found he could live with that if it meant he got to keep her in it, that was just the kind of Doctor he was.

* * *

He didn't think she'd heard him. That was obvious, although Clara wondered if he would have changed a word of what he'd said if he'd known she was listening. Her irritation was growing, with his inability to absorb the lessons they'd been hit in the face with, to understand that anything worth having involved risk; but he'd always been stubborn. Apparently this lesson was taking a little longer to stick. Her lip and her face still stung with the evidence of that same stubbornness, her whole body in fact still reeling from the awful creature she'd had to let slide through it to force him to act. And act he had, she could still feel him ringing between her ears, his fury and violent rage whipping inside of her and leaving as big a bruise as his elbow had on her face.

She couldn't remember a time when she didn't know what it felt like to have him enter her mind and manoeuvre things in there. She was still a puzzle to him it seemed, only now she was a jigsaw and there were pieces missing in some spots, too many in others. He never would sort through it all she realised, not even if there were thousands of her... which bought her back to his comments.

Vastra had been convinced that she would be horrified by what he'd said, concerned for what it meant for the Doctor. And yes, it was slightly disturbing she'd concede that, but this _was _the Doctor and judging him by human standards would have been pointless; in fact judging him by most standards, even Time Lord ones would have been equally redundant.

For him, as far as she could tell, this might actually be a step forward given he was actually admitting to someone other than himself, or his Blue Box, that he needed someone; that he would refuse to accept the alternative that loneliness and heartbreak might bring and allow himself to slip back into his old self-destructive, sulking habits. The fact that she had somehow become the one thing capable of breaking this particular version of him was not lost on her, nor was it unappreciated, she knew what it meant to have that kind of power over him, enough to not wield it flippantly.

Clara liked to think she was original everyone did, the problem was she had a head full of memories telling her she wasn't, not anymore. And every single one of those lives had been created for one purpose, to save the Doctor. That was the act she had chosen to die to achieve... because she genuinely hadn't believed there had been a way out of that time-stream when she'd jumped. She'd willingly given her life because she thought his was worth it. It was the same argument she'd tried to explain to him back in the alley.

Those other lives, those Echoes of her? They wanted to save him too, they were waiting for it, waiting for the moment they could fulfil the one purpose they had been created for, because now that his time-line was restored and his fate at Trenzalore re-written, they might never get it. In her mind it made as much sense as she imagined it made in his, it was fate, destiny, whatever... it just was and if it helped him through the tangled mess he'd got stuck in his head this regeneration round, then so be it. If anything she considered it an honour that he'd imagine thousands of years with any version of her by his side would be a good thing, because the Echoes weren't going to know any different, they'd get the experience of a lifetime and to him everyone of them would be brand new, something to sate his insatiable need to keep moving.

But in her heart, she knew him better than that, better than he clearly knew himself. There would eventually, one day, in what she hoped was a very long time from now, be a _new 'new'_ man, with a new mindset and a new outlook. Maybe this face would believe that he needed her, would attempt to hold on unable to move past her and she wouldn't deny him that, would be happy to be by his side as long as he'd have her, showing her the wonders and terrors of a Universe without limit, letting her help him find the man she knew in her heart he was, the man she'd glimpsed. Because she was selfish too, and this was undeniably the adventure of a thousand lifetimes, who better to share it with than the man that had been and no doubt would be the love of her life?

But his next face she had faith would look at it with fresh eyes, new priorities and most importantly, new regrets. As much as she thought of herself, she knew he'd grow tired of her and finally he'd stop looking for another replacement, another echo. He'd just move on... like he should.

She had faith, even if he didn't, because he _was_ the Doctor and one day soon maybe with a little push and an almighty shove from her and all the friends he didn't think he deserved, he'd remember that too. But until that happened she'd be Clara, however many times it took.


	15. Chapter 15

Acceptance got easier, for both of them, their uneasy relationship never really progressing or returning to its status quo, just... waiting. For the meantime, Clara figured they were where they needed to be.

Ok that was a lie... a stinking great big one that she was trying pitifully to convince herself of.

London had torn asunder any careful distance they had been crafting to protect themselves; they were both one exposed raw nerve. He had laid bare his soul and poured it into her mouth with abandon. His fierce protective instinct giving way to let her finally understand his deep rooted fears of losing her specifically. It wasn't that she was oblivious, she knew she could have come to mean something more to the Eleventh, perhaps she already had; but that it was this incarnation of the Doctor, this gruff, angry and apparently colder version would be the one to feel for her so deeply had quite frankly blindsided her.

Of course he handled the situation the way he seemed to handle everything that left him vulnerable, by turning it into a game. So he'd taken to taunting her with the change at every available opportunity; although whether he was doing it deliberately or because he simply couldn't help himself either she had no idea... though she suspected the former. Clara suspected it was some sort of payback because he'd had a more pronounced reaction to the venom and to get back at her of course for being so reckless with the Phantom Ripper and the fears she'd forced him to confront about them both.

Now when his fingers brushed her skin and she wanted to scream in frustration.

When he leant in close to whisper something in her ear and his breath fanned out over her face she longed to close her mouth around his.

But there was no hurrying him now, those fierce kisses he'd given her in the alley were notably absent and he seemed perfectly happy to torture them both with this ridiculous game.

Perhaps if he hadn't turned it into sport she might have succumbed and simply taken the initiative, but he was infuriating. Somehow him knowing that she felt for _him_, wanted _him_, it had just made him cockier and she hated cocky; like that little smirk he gave her now and then across the TARDIS console. Or the way when she pulled out her sonic he'd feel the need to wrap his hand around hers and guide her movements, claiming it was instruction; granted she still wasn't sure half the time what she was doing with it, mostly she pointed where he did.

Which was incidentally how they'd ended up here.

"You re-reversed the polarity I was reversing." He grumbled, arms crossed, giving her that eyebrow stare he did so well.

Clara crossed her arms and glared back. "Well, how about next time you explain what it is your doing before waving your sonic at something." She muttered, leaning back and forgetting momentarily that the walls of energy cells stung.

He rolled his eyes in exasperation at her. "Honestly. It's like giving a trained monkey a loaded weapon."

Clara swallowed the comment she meant to hurl back, words had no effect on him, she'd simply find that nifty little instrument he'd been developing to detect time eddy's and snip something important looking inside it without telling him. Much more satisfying to see him use it broken for weeks.

"Where are we?" She grumbled when she'd decided to speak to him again.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, leaning against the one solid back wall, glancing around as if pretending he hadn't already scoured every inch for a weakness or way out. "No idea. Although I'd say someone went to a lot of trouble to make it Doctor-proof."

"If that's your way of saying it's a very good prison cell, I'm not sure I share your admiration for our jailors." Clara grumbled eyeing the stinging energy walls and the white room beyond that seemed to be split into two sets of rows of cells on either side of a narrow white walkway.

The Doctor shrugged. "Suit yourself. I was merely implying it suggests someone who knows me well."

Clara moved away from the transparent energy wall and joined him, "So you've basically got nothing. Good to know."

His lips twitched with irritation and Clara suppressed a smirk, he hated that she could read him like a book now. "I have my sonic." He pointed out, as if that one item could do anything... usually it did, but that was hardly the point.

"So do I," she patted her own jacket pocket, rubbing it in just a little. "But given as it's shielded in here as we already established when you tried to fry our eardrums the first time you tried it... let's just accept the fact that in this situation the little metal magic wand is not helping." She huffed, arms crossing. "So, we're back to having exactly diddly squat."

"And I thought you were supposed to be the optimistic one." His hand briefly brushed the back of hers and she closed her eyes for a brief second in relief and quiet terror, before he lost contact. He didn't want to reveal his weakness to their captors... that weakness being her, quietly she agreed that it was for the best, even if she longed to take his hand and squeeze it back to let him know she was with him, no matter what.

For the most part she thought he was doing a wonderful job of concealing his anger, clearly he'd been practicing his poker face because as she met his eyes she wasn't seared by the coiled rage she knew was hidden just beneath.

His eyes were tracking beyond their cell and she followed his gaze, taking in eight other identical cells to theirs, all empty. "Do you think we should be expecting company?"

The Doctor crossed to stand beside her brushing his arm against hers and letting her quietly lean into him, his subtle offer of comfort which she appreciated as they inspected the sterile facility. White on white seemed to be the theme. "Possibly." He replied, but as his eyes inspected every detail she saw his frustration build and she felt it with him, because there was nothing to give even the slightest hint or clue as to where they were and who was holding them. "Damn!" he snarled, punching the barrier and barely even flinching at the way his skin sizzled in response. "No distinguishing marks." He snapped "The technology is so stripped back, so utterly devoid of any character that it could be any one of thousands of species spanning any millennia."

Clara sighed, slipping down the back wall to sit and patting the floor beside her. "Well, nothing to do but wait, take a load off." She instructed and he glanced back at her, it was a sign of how different he could be from the barely suppressed manic energy of his previous incarnations, because he joined her without argument his head hitting the wall and his eyes closing. He wouldn't sleep didn't especially need it often, but she knew his mind would be working feverishly behind his eyes trying to dredge up some clue from their surroundings or from the transmat that was used to kidnap them from an alien moon they had been touring in a poor attempt to distract themselves from the tension slowly growing onboard between them.

They were like that for hours by that time her head had dropped to his shoulder and his arm had slid around her waist, it was long enough that their captors materialised food and water via the transmat. The Doctor caught her wrist as she moved towards it, giving a short sharp shake of his head. Clara glanced between him and the water and sat back down beside him. He didn't remove his hand from around her wrist she noted and she leant slightly further into him.

"Poisoned?" she asked hesitantly, "Or drugged?"

The Doctor glanced at the food and sniffed the air. "Not in the traditional sense no, although as I said this is clearly a prison meant for me, they don't seem to quite know what to do with you." He waved his hand at the food. "It's not poisonous in the truest sense of the word, but with human physiology it would kill you all the same."

Clara glanced at the bowl and moved further away from it as he continued, "Although the water seems fine, water is water fairly universally." He acknowledged, "Still to accept their 'hospitality' would be to send the wrong impression. We are not content to sit here growing fat and bored, we will not be controlled Clara." He said it resolutely to the walls and she wished she shared his righteous indignation with the situation.

Clara nodded. "Right." She swallowed. "You do know that humans actually need food and water to you know... live?"

The Doctor gave her a raised eyebrow in warning and she slunk back against the wall, "I wasn't hungry anyway." She muttered to herself.

As she dozed against his shoulder, her stomach rumbling and her throat parched Clara let out a yelp of surprise when his form suddenly vanished, the distinctive sound and flash of the transmat ripping him away and leaving her shouting his name into the empty air of her cell and leaving a hollow panic growing in the pit of her stomach.

Hours passed, she had no idea how many, her watch didn't seem to be functioning, the hands spinning forwards and backwards indeterminably as she waited, nervous energy stealing her hunger as she paced, her hands running through her hair in frustration. He'd been gone too long. She couldn't let her mind sink into the darker thoughts it kept presenting her with, she wouldn't be able to function if she let that happen. She had to have faith, he'd be back, either he'd escape or they'd return him. He wouldn't be dead. Couldn't be.

The transmat light flashed and he was deposited back in the cell as a still form on the floor. Clara felt his name leave her lips in shock as she fell to her knees beside him her hands taking his face and willing him to open his eyes, to be ok, but he was so still. Tears were blooming in her eyes as she tried desperately to fight them until she confirmed it for herself as her hand went to his chest, the steady thump of his twin hearts there, slow but working. In that moment she didn't care what the Doctor wanted to portray to their captors, she was terrified and concerned for him as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, before pulling his head onto her lap stroking his brow softly. She tried to extend her mind to offer him even the smallest amount of comfort, to let him know she was there as she curled around him in the corner of the cell; she wished she could protect him somehow even if all she had to do it with was her own body. She felt the whisper of him brush her mind and sighed in relief. He'd be ok. He had to be.

Clara awoke startled to find she'd been asleep and that somehow their positions had been reversed; she was now looking up at the gently smiling face of her Doctor, his hands softly stroking through her hair. Instinctively her hand rose to his face above her and he leant his cheek into it as his eyes briefly closed with a sigh of relief. "Are you ok?" she asked hesitantly, his skin looked a little paler, his expression more sallow, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. He nodded and she felt the knot of unease unwind a fraction as she sat up letting him keep her in the circle of his arms. "What happened?"

The Doctor's smile fell, "They tried to devour me." He said it so matter-of-factly that she felt her hand pause its movement as she let it fall away from his face only to be recaptured by his as he bought it to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to her palm "They failed of course."

"They being?" she asked hesitantly, not sure she wanted to know.

"Reapers." He swallowed. "Dragon-like creatures born in the fires of the Time Vortex itself that exist for the sole purpose of cleansing the wounds that time-travel creates in the fabric of space-time. An evolutionary response by the Universe after the loss of the Time-Lords." He admitted looking disturbed by the thought of the knock on effect his own people had created on the Universe.

"And they, tried to cleanse your wound?" she asked, horrified, she'd seen the Doctor's life, his time-line, the beautiful glowing wound that were the tracks of his tears through it.

"Yes. Although I admit, I have never seen Reapers like these, they have clearly evolved somewhat since my last encounter, out of necessity I imagine. Fortunately their weakness remains unchanged, the older the object the more protection it offers against their attacks."

Clara felt a small flicker of a smile across her face as she sat up beside him, her hand still in his possession. "See and you thought being a silver fox was a bad thing."

He smiled briefly back. "Yes I was most disagreeable to them."

Clara felt her smile turn into smirk. "You're most disagreeable to almost everyone."

"Almost?" he joked affronted and she was pleased she could at least lighten the moment, although her laughter left her as he leant in, stealing the air from her lungs as his nose brushed hers, his face mere inches away. His unspoken question between them, _'was he not disagreeable to her'._

"You do have some redeemable qualities." She acknowledged her voice a mere whisper as she felt their breaths twin.

He cocked his head and she found her eyes drawn to his lips, knowing he wouldn't act, not here and now, no matter how much they might both want him to. "See I told you you'd find something you liked about this regeneration." He smirked, knowing his effect on her now.

He withdrew and Clara felt her breath release slowly as the tension he'd built slid back inside for now. "Smugness doesn't become you." She muttered hiding her own smile despite the situation, "So are we safe now... will they come back, will they let us out, or are they just going to kill us given as you're off the menu?" Clara had a dark thought, "Am I on the menu?" The Doctor opened his mouth as if to dissuade her before he closed it again reconsidering. "Technically I'm a hell of a paradox too Doctor and I'm tangled up in that wound of yours."

The Doctor squeezed her hand he clearly wanted to comfort her, tell her that there was nothing to worry about but his rather darkened expression said otherwise. His hands went around her face drawing her in. "Clara. If they take you, all those mental walls of yours, I need you to let them fall, however painful, however dark, I need you to let all of those years out. Time is what they feast on, and time is what will save you. Thousands of years, of lives, I need you to be ancient in that moment Clara. Tell me you can do that." His grip was intense and his eyes bore into hers making her promise.

"I promise." She whispered terrified that she might not be able to live up to it.

The Doctor sighed, dropping her face and letting his head fall back against the wall. "They went to a lot of trouble to bring me and keep me here." His eyes scanned the array of empty cells around them. "I fear they are only just getting started."

* * *

A day and a half later, the Doctor hadn't been de-materialised again, but then new food hadn't materialised either, the old one was starting to let off a rotten odour and the Doctor hesitantly retrieved the water, he dipped a pinky in it and tasted it slowly, running the drop around his mouth slowly. "Here." He offered the small cup to her first. "It's clean, as I suspected."

Clara didn't argue, she almost inhaled the water taking half and offering him the rest, he shook his head. "You were quite right you require sustenance. I do not as yet." Clara rolled her eyes at him and sipped it more cautiously. "Although I might suggest rationing it." He added pointedly and Clara with some regret placed the cup down, still feeling like her throat was raw and her head was foggy.

He reached out and brushed her cheek gently with his thumb, his mouth opening to speak when they were interrupted by the sound of a transmat activating and they both jumped to their feet, her legs were a little weak and she found the Doctor's hand tightly wound around her arm, his body slightly in front, protecting her even now.

There was a flash of light and four people were deposited in the cell beside theirs. Clara stared back at the faces and felt her chest tighten painfully as the achingly familiar sight of his foppish hair and that impossible chin raised to take her in from behind the energy field.

"Well hello there?" he smiled softly and Clara felt her eyes drawn to the others in the cell behind him, instinctively she took a step back from the field, bumping into _her_ Doctor. He grasped her hand tightly and gave her a distinctive look that she didn't need help to interpret. This was his younger self wearing a Stetson, complete with an entire family set... Amy, Rory and River.

River's eyes met theirs through the cage and Clara felt the confusion there, dim recognition, clearly an echo had made an impression at some point. But this wasn't the River that she'd encountered in the Teleconference, not yet, this was too early in her time-stream.

"Well!" Chinboy rubbed his hands in glee, looking around. "That was unexpected!"

The Doctor behind her snorted in derision. "Look at that chin, good lord how did you not put someone's eye out with that?" Clara elbowed him sharply in the ribs and smiled back at them all, not bothering to point out he'd stolen her line; especially not when she was looking into the face of the man that had so utterly changed her life, a man or at least a face she feared she might always be grieving for. Particularly when she couldn't let any of that reach her face.

The Eleventh approached their cage frowning, Amy was beside him, and Clara tried not to feel distinctly short next to the leggy red head. "Doctor, what is it, where are we?" Amy questioned.

Rory was staring at them too, "Hi, I'm Rory, and you are?" he spun taking in the cell "And like Amy said where exactly are we?" Clara stared at him his face bringing up a mostly buried life that was half contained behind solid brick walls in her mind. Even if the Reapers were going to try and eat her, that was one particular wall that she wouldn't be letting down. But even with that wall around most of that life, she remembered referring him as 'Nina' and just as he was then, he seemed as charmingly polite despite the situation and Clara noticed the fond look River gave him unseen by anyone else, clearly they didn't yet know their connection to their own daughter.

"Exactly my question, did you trap us here?" The Doctor wagged a finger at her Doctor, his eyes glancing over her without recognition that hurt more than she thought it would.

Her Doctor crossed his arms. "No." He smiled thinly. "Aren't you late for a date with an impossible astronaut?"

That seemed to stun the younger Doctor and he flinched back, touching his Stetson and straightening his bowtie nervously. "Your me." He declared succinctly looking mildly horrified at the suggestion as he retreated to his own companions.

"You're Scottish!" Amy aimed back at the Doctor, looking like she hadn't quite grasped the full weight of what she was seeing, this was if memory served her first regeneration encounter Clara realised.

The Doctor nodded, not unfurling his arms. "Indeed." He replied turning his attention and thin smile back to the Eleventh Doctor, "And it would seem they now have a pair of us to add to their collection."

"And who is they?" River gave him a pointed stare, hands on her hips expectantly.

"Forget who, _where_ are we?" Amy muttered turning to take in the sterile environment.

"Not a clue." Clara shrugged, relieved not to have to tell them what was waiting outside the cell doors for another few minutes, the nervous energy was bubbling through her though, now with the Eleventh here as well and she fell back on humour in an attempt to lighten the moment, "Makes it more fun though right?" only Rory smiled and she remembered again why she'd liked him so much.

"And you are?" River questioned and the Eleventh Doctor cut across her.

"Hey that's my question, I do the questions." He straightened his bow tie. "You are?" he directed at Clara. "I already know who he is... I don't suppose a _when_ he is, is possible?"

Clara opened her mouth and the Doctor's hand went down gently on her shoulder, he applied a light pressure in warning and she felt her smile turn thin. "Spoilers." She whispered, seeing the word hit them all like the slap she'd not quite intended.

The Eleventh cocked his head, observing them both. "No. No, it can't be a spoiler, this is a paradox, here I am and here I am," he waved at his older self, "looking like the demon headmaster... and Scottish I see." he smiled widely, looking mildly awed by that and sharing a grin with Amy before the shadow of what that might mean crossed his face, he visibly pushed it away and turned his attention back to her Doctor. "But you look just as confused as I do, which means you don't remember this. Which means this paradox will resolve itself and we'll forget all about this until the time-lines catch up and I'm you again."

Clara opened her mouth again and the Doctor's grip tightened he gave an imperceptible shake of his head. "Smell the air Doctor." Her Doctor instructed and the Eleventh gave him a dark look.

"I have."

"And?"

"I take your point."

"I don't smell anything." Rory muttered, making a show of sniffing.

Her Doctor gave him an assessing glare that no one missed when it seemed to come up short. "This place is sterile." He informed them all and she tried not to flinch at the implications she knew were coming.

"What antiseptic or something?" Rory queried, looking from one hopeless face to the other, Amy patted him lightly on the arm, clearly none the wiser but having the sense to keep her mouth closed.

"No... sterile, as in Universally so." The Eleventh muttered. "There is nothing but the absence, like a void."

Her Doctor nodded, "Exactly. No paradox's lingering, no hint of the temporal vortex, the schism is silent here." He almost seemed to relish the reveal or the confusion it seemed to bring.

The Eleventh Doctor sniffed, "Can't be... we'd be dead."

Her Doctor muttered a cuss under his breath before stalking away from the energy field that separated him from his previous self. "That's the wonderful thing about time, leave a species alone long enough they eventually evolve. The Reapers might have once been mindless beasts circling the tears in the fabric of space-time like immune cells waiting to sterilise a wound... but I rather think they've adapted to become something altogether more effective and predatory, not content to merely wait for their meal to come to them. After all in the absence of the Time-lords, the Universe had to do something to repair itself."

"And you've encountered these Reapers before?" Amy pressed, looking between the two men, the two incarnations of her Doctor. "And... for the record this is just weird. You're you... and you're you?" she pointed between them, "So who's the _real_ one?"

Clara shook her head, now _that_ was the question. "Neither, both, just a matter of perspective." She muttered. "This is just what he is, what he does Amy. Surely he told you about his regenerations... you met him right off the back of one, his steering and taste were so screwed up he thought fish fingers and custard were a good idea."

Amy gave her a startled and unnerved look that spoke volumes. "Ok, and now that's just creepier, who are you and how do you know me... and what he ate when he met me?" Amy accused, pointing angrily, her Scottish accent stronger when she was angry Clara noted, just like the Doctor's.

River stepped between them, her arms on Amy's shoulders. "Careful." She told her quietly, "If the Reapers are here, whatever form they're in, we have to be cautious... a paradox now, like knowing things we can't, might well be the last thing we do."

"They're that bad?" Rory asked between them.

The Eleventh whipped out his sonic, examining it and the walls. "They were. Imagine a giant ferocious dragon that feeds on time-energy."

Clara raised her hand in warning, "Doctor I wouldn't..." he activated his sonic and she winced in pain as he and his companions clapped their hands to their ears and went down to their knees shouting out in agony.

Her Doctor came to stand beside her, looking in on them dispassionately. "Interesting, the cages deflect the sonic entirely back into themselves, no leakage into the surrounding cells at all."

The others got slowly to their feet looking slightly green and gave her Doctor a dark glare. "Well Clara did try to warn you." He noted.

"Ha. You said her name!" the Eleventh declared then pointed his sonic around wildly as if expecting the Reapers to swoop in on them.

Clara gave her Doctor a confused look. "Contained Paradox's within each cell." He shrugged. "What happens in one doesn't leak into another. Ingenious really." He added slightly admiringly.

The Eleventh pointed excitedly at him, then at her. "Right yes... no need to worry about it spreading, our own time-streams are retained inside so we'll just forget it until they merge once more!" he looked sheepishly at River and Amy who were looking bemused. "I'd have got their eventually too."

Clara felt sympathetic. "Don't feel too bad, he's had two days to pretty much puzzle it through."

"Oh don't humour the boy." Her Doctor muttered, "This version was always a bit thick."

The Eleventh looked a little affronted, Amy however was on fine form, she got right up to the energy wall and glared at the Doctor. "Oy, you might be Scottish now, but that's no excuse for being a miserable git!"

Rory raised his hand and Amy didn't even need to look at him. "Shut up Rory." She snarled.

He nodded. "Right. Seemed wrong not to try and point out the obvious there though."

The Eleventh stalked the perimeter of his cell, eyeing the other him with suspicion as he stood perfectly stationary, content to observe. "So... you've been here longer, what have you learnt?" there was a challenge in it and her Doctor raised an eyebrow at his younger self in clear derision.

"Aside from the fact that they failed to devour me and cleanse my particular wound through space and time..." he quirked an eyebrow sarcasm dripping as they digested that unpleasant titbit. He shrugged, looking around, "These cells are also impenetrable and they appear to be distinctly unfamiliar with human physiology... other than that not much."

River glanced at Clara, "Unfamiliar how?"

Rory gave her a look that suggested that wasn't the question he'd have asked. Amy beat him to it though, "What do you mean they tried to devour you?"

"And how did you survive?" The Eleventh chimed in.

Clara looked at River an answered the one question she had an answer for as she pointed at the food and the meagre cup of water. "Accidentally poisonous." She sighed, "Water's fine, when it eventually turns up."

"Accidentally?" Rory sounded like he thought they were being a bit dim.

Clara personally agreed with the Doctor on this. "Well they haven't tried to eat me yet. Why leave food if they didn't want me alive?"

"Right, good point!" the Eleventh declared, his eyes on his older self again, "How long has it been for you... since well," he touched his Stetson.

Clara watched her Doctor stiffen with unease and she reached out for his hand, forgetting herself momentarily as he shared a look with her before letting her hand drop away untouched. "I am over 2,000 years old now."

The Eleventh looked a little ill at that. "But that's not possible..." he opened his mouth and closed it again, clearly the evidence was in front of him.

"Yes well I assure you, if I'd have had a choice in the matter it might not have been." The Doctor snapped, his expression finding her guilt ridden one and it softened a fraction, "Fortunately wiser souls and fate intervened and here I am."

The Eleventh looked like he was digesting something unpleasant. "Lake Silencio... Trenzalore?" the words seemed to cut him and Clara felt every inch of that pain, wishing she could solve the mystery for him, just tell him what was waiting, but her Doctor's hand brushed her back, her name he would reveal, but apparently everything else was still off limits.

"Spoilers." The Doctor's brash Scottish accent played with the word and River smirked back at him as he tipped his head to her in acknowledgement.

"If you two are quite done, I'd like to get out of here. So come on then, there's two of you now, surely you boy's can come up with something brilliant to get us out of here." Amy looked between them expectantly her foot tapping in her boots, and despite the years the exact same expression of unease was playing out across two very different faces.

The two Doctors were locked in a gaze, understanding seeming to pass between them unhindered by the energy cell flickering between. The Eleventh touched his Stetson. "You've got nearly 800 years on me old man."

The Doctor nodded. "1200 is still plenty old enough." He offered, looking mildly doubtful and Clara realised a split second before what was about to happen as the transmat enveloped the Eleventh Doctor, leaving just his companions alone in the cell with equally horrified and startled expressions as she herself had worn only a day ago.

They had failed to devour his older self... so they were trying a younger leaner version. She turned, finding the arms of her Doctor opening wide to embrace her and pull her close, understanding as only he could, that she couldn't watch that face die again.


	16. Chapter 16

The Eleventh Doctor was returned looking a sorrier state than her Doctor had, fortunately he had a nurse, a wife and a best friend to tend to him as he shared a dark look with his future self and a very pained thumbs up before his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Oh, god." Clara felt her hand go to her mouth and she found herself squeezing her Doctor's hand tightly, he was alive, it was better than she'd hoped for, she had to take comfort from that even if he looked right now like he'd rather not have been. A dark thought flittered across her panicked mind, one that no doubt her Doctor had already had. "Doctor there are more cells... how far are they willing to go back?"

Her Doctor shared her concern, she could see his steel grey eyes darkening as he observed the cells, before he met River's.

"They can't." She informed him quietly, standing and leaving the Eleventh to Amy and Rory's care now that his chest was rising and falling steadily.

"The further they go back, the stronger these fields surrounding the paradox will have to be with us all here... the greater the reward in their eyes I'd imagine as well, if they eventually succeed." The Doctor explained and River looked horrified.

"They will destroy your entire Time-line if they go back further, the Paradox's alone, not to mention all the good you've done..." River realised a dark expression crossing her face. "Which is I suppose what they want, a veritable feast."

Clara felt a cold chill sweep over her, the Doctor merely shrugged. "Yes well, this wouldn't be the first time someone has tried to erase my personal time-line." River stared at him bewildered, clearly not used to being wrong footed by him, she was usually the one with all the answers. "Oh yes... spoilers." He smiled thinly at her, relishing the way the word rolled from his tongue now.

Clara gave River a knowing look. "You'd probably cease to exist." River shrugged, rightly so, as if her non-existence would mean much next to the stars all winking out of existence without the Doctor there to save them so Clara continued down the dark line her thoughts had taken her. "Technically we'd all cease to exist, this Time-line wouldn't have happened, we'd never meet the Doctor become who we are now; if Earth even still existed."

"Cheerful thought." Rory quipped looking faintly ill.

"Yeah, right barrel of laughs you are. How about we not talk about Universe ending paradox's and focus on the now. So far their two Doctors down and they're fine." Amy declared and they all looked at the unconscious Eleven still looking a little green. "Yes, well fine is a broad term." Amy amended nervously as she swept his hair out of his eyes.

Clara didn't like to think what she'd be without the Doctor, back in a human world, a nanny to two children that increasingly didn't need her, lost and alone, bored of a life that never went anywhere... if she had ever existed at all. Because the teaching thing that had been all him, giving her the time she needed to study, to get her to finish off her qualification. She also had a suspicion he might have had a chat with the Chairman of the Board of Governor's which at the time she hadn't understood the significance of but after Twelve's quip about kidnapping school teachers she recalled the name Ian Chesterton along with the strong face of the man that had put up with the Doctor's rather grumpier first incarnation.

"Yes well I suppose I won't have to worry about ceasing to exist... we'll probably starve to death first, or worse end up on the menu."

The Doctor made a sharp gesture and she flinched in surprise as he stalked forwards dragging her back into the cell and spinning her so he could grasp her face. His fury breaking through for the first time as he bought them inches apart, his fingers biting into her skin. "Don't you dare." He snarled. "Not for a minute Clara Oswin Oswald will you consider leaving me! I will find a way to stop this." He promised and she nodded, frightened by the intensity again now that it was suddenly focussed on her and she tried not to wince at his grip.

"Doctor, take it easy, you're hurting her." River's voice broke through the tension and she felt his fingers loosen instantly, his shocked and furious features rearranging themselves behind his calm exterior as if they had never been there. Clearly his poker face had improved. Clara dropped his gaze, putting distance between them in the cell. She was his weakness... the thing that made his calm slip, Whitechapel had taught her that if nothing else.

"Don't get emotional." Amy was beside her daughter, although she didn't know it Clara noted, as she stared at the two women through her blurry eyes as she tried to blink away tears. "You always make mistakes when you get emotional."

The Doctor ran his hands through his silver hair in frustration his lips curling up into a sneer as he rounded on the two of them. "What would you know of my emotions." He bit back. "Either of you. You mean nothing to me. And if you think you meant anything to that fool unconscious on the floor you're kidding yourself!" his words were scathing and released in nothing more than anger an attempt to inflict the same pain, Clara knew that but that wouldn't take the bite from them.

Amy flinched and backed into Rory who wrapped an arm around her waist, but River; River didn't so much as blink. Clara stalked forward her hand grasping him and spinning him around breaking their dangerous gaze.

"Don't do that. Don't lash out, and especially not at them." She bit back the words she wanted to say the _'they are your family'_ dying on her tongue, because that was information Amy and Rory wouldn't be able to process right now and they needed everyone alert if they were going to get out of here. But the Doctor and River knew what she meant, what she was saying.

"My, my Doctor, what a _man_ you have become." The derision she packed into those few words was enough to sting and the Doctor winced fractionally, his eyes not leaving Clara's.

"What happened to you?" Amy was back beside River, but there wasn't anger in her face, just the concern of someone who truly loved the man, even if he wasn't hers anymore.

Clara watched him drop his head and stalk to the back of the cell, his arms crossed as she stared at the empty cell opposite theirs, sinking deep into thought and essentially shutting them all out. Clara sighed, rubbing her arms as fatigue and hunger began to make themselves known in her overstressed state.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked her cautiously through the flickering cell wall, approaching as close as she dared, Clara's eyes flicked to the Eleventh, lying peacefully on the floor asleep and unable to witness the disappointment of his companions in the man he would become.

Clara turned, putting her back to the Doctor. "We're fine." She replied, smiling thinly, how could she explain to this girl, the changes, the man even the Eleventh would become before his end. It was too much. "Just stir crazy, we've been in here a while longer."

River was merely stood watching the Doctor clearly not buying it and Amy glanced at her curiously but refrained from comment. Clara tried to reassure the young couple. "Don't worry, they'll think of something." It might have sounded more reassuring if her Doctor hadn't harrumphed in clear disagreement behind her and slid down to the seated position he'd held before the others had turned up, his one leg outstretched the other bent at the knee, his hand resting carelessly on it. The picture of disinterest. They might have been fooled, but she wasn't. He was up to something.

The Transmat light flashed and she had a moment to see the horrified look on Amy's face through the energy field before she felt the distinct tug around her midsection as she was pulled away, the sound of her Doctor's voice roaring in her ears.

Pain, it became her every moment as she fought the impossible pull of an appetite so far beyond anything she had ever known. Her eyes were open, staring into the red pitiless void of theirs, nightmare faces, faces that belonged in the void, faces to drive you into madness. The walls inside her crumbled as she felt her very essence dissolving, her soul, her life pouring out of her with every touch of their repellent skin as psychic if not actual jaws closed around her. The lives erupted inside of her and she dug desperately, taking a battering ram to those that were too well reinforced, year upon year unfolded and she felt the great pressure tearing at her release with every life that she managed to free. Her mind swirled but she gasped for breath still alive at least. Their screams of frustration as they hit the sheer volume of time between each life were high pitched and feral and she screamed right back in absolute terror; fearing that her very soul might be devoured if she didn't fight it, fight with every _her_ that had ever been.

She was still screaming when the transmat enveloped her and deposited her back in the cell, the flash of white so harsh that she closed her eyes, clutching herself around the waist and trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Clara." His voice, his wondrous utterly fantastic voice was against her ear and she felt his arms envelope her pulling her body against his as he rocked her gently, her name repeating over and over on his lips. "Your safe." He whispered, "Just breath with me, breath through the pain." He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"It burns!" she screeched, feeling like her entire mind was ablaze.

"Doctor, what is this, what is happening, tell me why they took her!" The Eleventh was shouting at his future self now from behind the energy wall.

"Not now!" her Doctor snarled back. "Clara my Clara, please." He rocked her, "Let me in." His fingers were against her temples, demanding entrance, but there was already too much inside her head right now. It was like when she'd been pulled from his time-stream those lives, those memories blazing through her, burning everything she was to ash.

"Too much." She pleaded, "It's too much, make it stop." She begged.

"Clara!" he barked. "Let me in and I will make it stop, trust me... trust me like you trusted _him_ when he pulled you free the first time." He guided her face to the Eleventh and she blinked taking in his concerned and confused looking visage, but he wasn't her Doctor now, this was her Doctor, however broken, however different, this man holding her now, pleading to save her. "I know your mind now Clara, now it better than my own, I know what needs to be hidden what you can bare and what you cannot. I will rebuild those walls, I'll leave you the best and conceal the worst."

"Doctor, what's happening to her?" River's voice conveyed the confusion of the others.

"She's burning in every second of my time-line. I told her to let the walls down, let all her lives out and she did, they couldn't feast on her not my impossible girl who's lived a thousand lifetimes... too much history, too much time. It was the only protection she had left."

"Can you help her?" The Eleventh's voice filtered through, the voice she had heard as she had jumped to her destiny that day as he spoke to his next self.

"Tell her to let me in." She blinked through unseeing eyes as her Doctor pleaded with him, "You were her Doctor long before I got there. You were the one she sacrificed herself for, you are the reason she is this. You saved her once, tell her to let me save her again."

"Me?" The Eleventh's confusion was clear even to her addled mind. "I..." he trailed off and she heard him move closer. "Clara." His voice, saying her name, the name that had allowed her to crawl her way out of the fog of his lives once before. "Come back to us Clara, let me save you."

But she didn't need to hear the Eleventh, the steady thud of the twin hearts against her, the fall of his breath over her face, the desperation in his touch as he cradled her, his fingers sliding into her hair his forehead pressed against hers. The Twelfth was her Doctor now and she let him in, let him save her again.

* * *

Clara awoke to the sound of bickering between the Eleventh and her Doctor, she blinked rapidly trying to understand the roaring pain in her head as she moved.

"Clara, your awake." Her Doctor declared, rushing to her side and grasping her arm. "Take it slowly." He admonished, trying to make her sit back down, but she wanted to be upright and she swayed violently in his arms.

"Ouch." She muttered. "So dragons spawned in the time-vortex... gotcha. Not nice." She added, feeling faintly queasy again with the memory of those eyes ready to erase her entire existence and eat her soul.

"You did it though, you held them off." He leant away fractionally, still holding her, but she got the distinct impression he was trying to put distance between them.

"Yes." She nodded, looking at him and then at the Eleventh who looked oddly flustered at her attention. Clara turned her gaze back to the Doctor. "Thanks to you."

"Your head?" he inquired and Clara touched her temple as if that would help her check.

"Better. Less scrambled, definitely some more secure building work inside this time, strong walls. It should be fine." She assessed prodding a few darker memories behind their respective walls and relieved to find nothing seeped through the joins.

"Yes well, sometimes it requires a more finessed hand for work like that." The Doctor pointed out and gave his younger self a dark look that Clara noticed with some unease.

"Hey, don't blame him, we were stuck in his time-stream at the time, I'm lucky we got out at all with any piece of my mind intact. Besides you had help this time, I've gotten better at directing you to the worst of it and you know it." Clara didn't like ranting at him not in front of the others, but she didn't want him transferring blame onto... well himself, it just wasn't healthy. "Besides, shoddy workman ship let me smash it all to bits when I needed it, so let's not mention it again."

"Oh yes, so forgiving of the Chin, but me?" he snarled spinning on her and Clara had a moment of clarity.

"Oh for heavens sake!" she threw her arms up in despair at him "Jealousy, you're going to bring that in here, now, for yourself!" she snarled, furious with him and her still pounding head that he was making worse with all this yelling. "In case you didn't notice Doctor, it wasn't because of him I let you in, wasn't his voice that led me back this time. It was you!" He flinched like she'd struck him as he stared back at her, his hand reflexively tightening around her waist as he continued to hold her shaky form up. "You great idiot." She snapped almost fondly and he softened a fraction, before his mask slipped back into place.

"Now isn't the time for this." He muttered.

"You bought it up." The Eleventh snapped back and Clara gave him a warning look through the energy wall that he looked mildly contrite about receiving.

"Oh stop it, the pair of you, you're like spoiled children fighting over a new toy." Amy's voice was the voice of reason and Clara focussed on it, grateful to have her interrupt the moment. "She's a person for Pete's sake, and have you any idea how ridiculous it is to stand their arguing with yourself." her eyes rounded on Clara, "Are you alright?"

"Peachy keen." Clara replied, not feeling it in the slightest as she attempted a smile.

Rory turned his gaze on River, confusion and a concern clearly sweeping over his face. "Will they try and take you, isn't your life a huge paradox, because aren't you like travelling in the reverse to the Doctor?" Her Doctor winced, she saw him, at just how close Rory had come to the tragic truth there.

The Eleventh gave River a sharp once over. "No, not yet. Not enough of a paradox there, not yet anyway, probably be more of a snack than a feast." Of course he didn't know the truth about her yet and Clara found herself biting down hard on the inside of her mouth to stop herself from saying anything, River didn't need more negativity.

But right now River was trying not to be offended by the Eleventh. "Excuse me, I think you'll find that I am every bit as complicated as you are sweetie." River sounded about as affronted as she could be and Clara sympathised.

"No office intended." The Eleventh snapped back, tilting his Stetson at her. "But no, you aren't. Not by half, not nearly enough years. These things are looking for paradoxes that span millennia. You've got what, several hundred years behind you at most River?"

River gave him a coy smirk. "Oh you know better than to ask a woman her age Doctor."

Rory touched her arm, drawing the Doctor's focus. "So they won't come for River period... or they just won't come _yet_?"

The Eleventh and Twelfth shared a look but it was her Doctor that finally spoke, probably because the Eleventh never did like to be the bearer of bad news. "There's plenty more cells here. I think they'll still working on cooking a feast, we just have to hope they don't get peckish in the meantime.

His words seemed prophetic as the distinctive flash of the transmat blinded them all momentarily as three more bodies were deposited in the cell across the wall from the Eleventh's. Clara had a moment to raise her slightly weary head and welcome the arrival of the Doctor's Tenth-self and a very loud and clearly confused Donna Noble, accompanied by a somewhat more withdrawn Martha Jones than the one Clara had so recently met.

"Oh terrific, Sandshoes is here." Her Doctor muttered, seeing his Tenth self look from one uneasy face to another making his own assessments and coming up with the unfortunate conclusion they all had, if a few seconds slower.

"How... what?" Ten managed, looking from the assorted companions to the two men that were despite everything still clearly him.

"Excellent questions." Her Doctor muttered, "I'll let the Chin take over the explanation, I fear it will grow tiresome in the next few hours."

Ten looked at Eleven through their shared cell wall. "The Chin?" he questioned and Eleven looked him up and down, "Better than Sandshoes." He revealed as Ten looked down at his dirty pumps and straightened his pinstripe jacket a look of comprehension dawning.

"They're comfy." Was his only explanation.

"Doctor, where the hell are we, and who are these people?" Donna had taken on a tone high enough that Clara feared might start to cause the same effect the sonic's had on the energy cells.

Ten swallowed. "Well, this appears to be me... and me. And my future companions."

River stepped up to the cell wall between them. "Charmed." She smiled widely at him, promising enough in that smile that Eleven looked mightily uncomfortable.

"Oy." Eleven called out. "Don't flirt with _that_ one."

"Shall I flirt with you instead then?" River taunted lazily behind her, throwing both men a little off as Clara observed it all admiringly and a little sadly that even this remarkable woman would end, her feet wobbled fractionally and her Doctor guided her to the back of the cell, easing her down where she dutifully put her head between her knees and tried to breathe through the sudden wash of nausea.

"Someone please explain?" Martha asked looking more than a little unnerved as she stepped up beside Ten peering around into the other cages and taking stock of the people in them.

"Yes out with it Spaceman!" Donna declared and Clara wondered exactly when it was that the Tenth had met up with both Donna and Martha at the same time.

"Yes, why doesn't someone do that?" Ten pressed as his eyes came to rest on her Doctor the only one not on his feet as he eased down beside her, propping his knees up wearing a supremely bored look from the back of their cell. The others might have been fooled by it, but she wasn't, she felt his warmth beside her, he just wasn't willing to let her out of arms length again and she wasn't ready to be on her feet yet.

Eleven gave his future self a cursory glance taking in their position with a frown and straightening his bow tie the way he always did when he had a problem that needed solving. "Yes well, long and short of it, the Reapers are back, they've evolved and are trying to devour my... that is well _our_ time-line by sterilising its wound." The Eleventh rocked back on his heels. "Gramps in the cell over there is way too old, gone off I should think they couldn't get through his age barrier so they tried me... I know I might look like a chip off the old block but I've been about a bit."

"So they're going back through our time-line trying to find one of us they can devour." Ten finished and Clara could feel his manic energy building two cells away, he wouldn't appreciate the cell confined like that as he was.

"Yes, I think that about covers it." River finished for them. "Although they did try and take a bite out of dear Clara in the far cell, something about a time-line jumping paradox that meant she looked about as tasty as you fella's do. I'm just hoping to stay off the menu a little while longer, can't say it looked like a pleasant experience."

The Tenth absorbed that and cocked his head towards their cell "Gramps?" the Tenth called, "I take it you don't want to formerly introduce us?"

"I have nothing more to add." Her Doctor grumbled, his Scottish lilt clearly surprising the Tenth.

"He's Scottish!" Ten exclaimed pointing at him and spinning on the others, clearly wondering why they didn't seem to share his sudden enthusiasm.

"And, you got a problem with that pal?" Amy charged forward in her cell, glaring at him through the divide her own brash accent on display as the Tenth looked on, beaming wildly.

"Oh how glorious, Scottish and ginger; I must have felt like it was Christmas when I stumbled onto you!" Ten declared and Donna smacked him on the arm, causing him to mutter rubbing his arm as he made way for her.

"Oy, Lady with the Space hair." She shouted across to River who looked faintly amused.

"Professor River Song." River introduced herself and Donna cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh well _excuse_ me Professor. But we've got two Doctor's in this cell, don't we Doctor Jones." She indicated Martha. "So I guess we win."

River looked through the cell, seemingly bemused by the exchange as the Eleventh Doctor fell surprisingly quiet. "Did you have a question Donna?" And Clara wondered if the shadow of the Doctor Donna had just passed through them both.

Donna seemed somewhat taken aback that the other woman knew her name and it threw her off her stride, her mouth opened and closed briefly. "There's really three of them now?" was all she managed when she finally did speak.

"More like two and a strop." Rory muttered under his breath and her Doctor turned his head giving him a glare that said more than enough.

Donna's eyes drifted to Clara's Doctor and she watched the woman do a double take. "Hey, don't I know you...?" the Doctor gave her a highly doubtful look. "You were in Pompeii, in a toga." Donna clarified, pointing at him and then the Tenth.

Clara glanced at her Doctor who shook his head briefly as if dismissing it, but the Tenth Doctor was looking at his oldest version afresh, "Huh, come to mention it you do look a lot like Lucius Caecilius, same temperament too if I'm not mistaken." Their locked gaze seemed to speak volumes but it was indecipherable to anyone but them and Clara wondered if they might have to go to Pompeii after all, maybe the Tenth hadn't been solely responsible for Vesuvius.

"You should prepare yourself." Her Doctor finally stood and came to the front of the cell, Clara didn't look at him, worried what she might see if she did as he spoke directly to the Tenth.

"Devouring." The Tenth grumbled. "Right." He looked about uneasily. "How bad?"

The Eleventh winced and her Doctor merely stared back impassively, the Tenth's eyes fell to hers, clearly she still looked a little pale and shaky, he frowned looking disturbed by the lack of answer.

Amy turned to the Eleventh, "How old is this younger version of you Doctor?"

The Eleventh and Tenth shared a look before the Tenth answered. "Oh plenty old, 900 and something. It'll be fine." The transmat enveloped him and Donna and Martha were left shouting his name and clutching at empty air and Clara winced in sympathy knowing now exactly what this younger version was about to go through.


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

The Tenth was not well when he was returned, he wasn't conscious and his body had a distinctly unhealthy pallor to it, but he was breathing and he had Martha who set to work looking after him almost immediately, Donna gently offering moral support as they tried to coax him back to consciousness.

"He lived." Her Doctor spoke, surprising her with his proximity as his hand ghosted down her back standing inches from her as she stared over at the even younger version of him. Her legs were mostly stronger now, but she wasn't really up to it as she leant against him subtly accepting his offered support.

"You sound surprised." She turned, staring up at him and found the deep seated concern and anger he'd been masking since their arrival was still there simmering away and she reached out squeezing his hand lightly.

The Eleventh appeared at their shared cell wall, his sharp eyes taking in the exchange between them as they dropped their hands. "Yes well, it bodes well for the next us, the Northern one, he never did put many miles on that face, barely 900 but if Sandshoes can get through it he should too."

"We can't let them keep doing this." River joined them. "The damage they could be doing to your Time-line..."

"Is exactly what they want." Her Doctor snapped. "More food for them. They just haven't found a way to open the packet and get at it yet."

"Well they only have one shot left." Eleven muttered. "After that even they won't be able to find another version of us, the rest of us are all safely time-locked before the war."

"What will they do if they can't devour any of us?" Clara looked between them.

Her Doctor sighed. "Oh you know what they say Clara, if at first you don't succeed..."

"Try, try again." Eleven finished for him their expressions equally dark. Clara felt sick at the thought of going through that again, of having to dismantle all those walls, to feel her soul burning, knowing that she might be forced to repeat it over and over until they eventually broke through the 'theoretical age barrier' her memories contained.

Her dark thoughts were disrupted by the arrival of food and water that materialised in the three cells and Clara looked at it dispassionately as the Doctor retrieved the water; prodding the food with distaste as he lifted a morsel to his mouth, he chewed it a few times before swallowing with a dark expression as he crossed back to her holding the water out. "Drink this, the foods marginally less toxic to you this time, some of it you might be able to stomach." He held out a portion of something pink and squirming to her.

"I think I'll pass." She managed, sipping the water, trying not to startle at the telepathic brush of his mind against hers, and then fighting to not to let her expression change as he conveyed a set of instructions to her, he turned away from her and Clara swallowed hard, not sure she'd heard him right... or perhaps just hoping she hadn't because as plans went, that one sucked.

When he turned back, all traces of it were gone from his face and he didn't relent with the food, holding it out to her. "The time between their outings to collect another me has gotten shorter, which means that although the others have only been here for a day give or take, you have been in this cell for three days now without food and barely enough water and after what they did to you... Soon enough you won't be strong enough to stand." His voice was clipped, his tone as angry with their captors as he was with himself no doubt for getting her into this.

Clara felt a whole host of eyes turn on her and she tried to stand up-straight, defiantly. "I am fine and I won't be eating something that is only going to poison me 'a little bit'."

"You childish brat!" he spat and Clara backed up from him, that fury alighting in him once more as his mask slipped that little bit on purpose now.

"Excuse me?" she snapped back, hands on hips, ok so it was a dumb plan, but she considered it might just be the only one they had and as they say, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'.

"This is all your fault!" he snarled, throwing the food tray a little to accurately at her as it smashed on the wall inches from her head as she jumped aside, her eyes whipping back furiously on him.

"Me?" she spat, stabbing a finger at him, "You were the idiot stupid enough to get us snared in an obvious trap! Where was your vaunted Time Lord control when you were showing off your latest gadget instead of picking up the incoming transmat!"

"Hey, hey!" Rory was barking at them from the cell beside. "Now is really not the time."

"Oy, what's going on!" Donna bellowed, clearly unable to keep out of a fight.

"You ungrateful little cur!" The Doctor spat and he lunged for her, forcing her to spin out of his grasp as he grasped at the empty space she had been in. Clara backed away, it wasn't hard to let terror bleed into her expression she wasn't entirely sure what was real and what wasn't in that moment as his fingers twitched like he was itching to rap them around her throat, and she let it play over her face, feeling her heart rate increase. But she trusted the Doctor and this time round, he genuinely did seem to know what he was doing most of the time.

"Leave her alone!" The Eleventh roared, the Tenth finally awake, was right there beside him in their opposing cells faces as close to their energy fields as they could. "What is wrong with you?" But her Doctor didn't even spare them a glance.

"Yes Doctor," she bit back, "What is _wrong_ with you?" Clara retorted, goading him. "Not quite the man you were hey... feeling inferior all of a sudden, surrounded by better, stronger versions of you. You know what, you should be jealous, jealous of the man you were, because standing here faced with them it's obvious your nothing but a pale imitation."

The Doctor's expression twisted and she had a second to consider her move, she did nothing as he lunged and his fingers went solidly around her throat. Her eyes widened for a fraction at the strength behind his grip and she genuinely panicked, feeling her lungs protest as he showed no signs of relenting. Their eyes locked and she felt the whisper of his instruction again in her mind, but her vision was beginning to cloud, she couldn't even hear the shouts that were drowning out everything else from the others. Black spots appeared in her vision and she felt the Doctor waiver. Maybe he'd been wrong after all.

The transmat engulfed her in a blinding flash, she had a moment to panic that she was going to face another attempt at devouring before she found herself deposited in the cell on the far wall opposite his, a small walkway dividing their energy walls. Warily Clara watched him, his hands curled at his side in rage as he breathed heavily from the exertion staring at her head on behind his cage as she slowly got to her feet. She coughed slightly and couldn't help but wince as she touched the raw skin of her throat, she'd have bruises she noted with distaste but it couldn't be helped. The sound of the abuse that was being hurled at him from the various cages filtered through.

"What the hell is going on!"

"Have you lost your mind Doctor?"

"Clara are you ok?"

"What is wrong with you Doctor?"

"Doctor do something!" that last seemed to have been aimed at his other two incarnations.

Clara tuned out their questions instead looking her Doctor straight in the eye she nodded once, receiving an answering one in return. Message received, score one for the Doctor. Apparently their captors wouldn't tolerate violence not if it might damage their meal tickets.

The exchange didn't go unnoticed, River was looking between the two of them just a second before the other two Doctor's shared a look and began pacing, falling silent in their protests and letting their companions bleat on about decency and his clear decent into something darker. But even his younger selves couldn't know what her Doctor had planned, they weren't him yet and for all their brilliance, they didn't know everything he did as she surreptitiously checked that her sonic was still in her pocket.

* * *

The Ninth Doctor materialised in the cell beside hers across the small white walkway from the others, in his usual gruff manner he managed to look supremely unimpressed as he took in the state of affairs accompanied by the vibrant Rose, an even younger Mickey and a fresh faced and if she wasn't mistaken very mortal Captain Jack.

"Oh my God." Clara opened and closed her mouth her Doctor sending her a sharp look from across the way that said in absolutely no uncertain terms was she to say the next words.

Jack's eyes rounded on her and alighted. "Oswin Owald!" he grinned striding up to the transparent wall of energy dividing their cells. "Oh now I was thinking this was looking to be a bad situation but here you are and I just know it's my lucky day!" his slow wink had lost none of its power.

"Oh for heaven's sake, someone just shoot me." Her Doctor muttered and she couldn't help but smirk, particularly because a few of his old companions looked more than willing.

"Jack." Clara smiled thinly at him, more than a little flattered that his reaction seemed the same now as it had been thousands of years later from his perspective. Quite the impression she'd made indeed. "I'd love to catch up, but now is really not the time."

"Does anybody want to tell me what's going on... anyone?" The Ninth turned, in his powerful northern accent, his battered leather jacket giving him a distinctly worn in no-nonsense look.

"Wow. Those are some spectacular ears." Eleven quipped and the Tenth smothered a smirk. "Your turn Sandshoes." Eleven declared waving at his younger self, "It's called 'pass the potentially Universe destroying news on' for a reason."

"Oh don't tell me you're me." The Ninth muttered looking mortified. "All of you?" he gave the Tenth and Eleventh forms a distinctly un-amused glare. "Him I'd believe." He pointed to her Doctor who gave a small wave of acknowledgement from his seated position his legs crossed reclining with his eyes mostly closed from the back of his cell.

"Doctor, what is this?" Rose's London accent was stronger than Clara imagined and she couldn't help but watch as just the sound of it seemed to set a bomb off in Tenth's chest... of course the poor girl was oblivious to it at this point in her Time-stream, but Donna caught her Doctor, Martha grasping his other arm, both of them whispering support into his ear that had the Ninth looking darkly between them. Clara felt the pain of it fresh, it was almost a visual representation of what she knew her own Doctor was suppressing when he considered losing her now.

"Perhaps if I might explain." River cut in addressing the Ninth from across the way.

"You might not." The Ninth snapped not even glancing her way his eyes fixed on the Tenth who was staring at Rose completely unable to disguise the tears in his eyes. Mickey never was all that slow it seemed, his arms went around Rose and he pulled her back further into the cell talking to her quietly out of earshot, distracting her beautifully and Clara made a mental note that if they ever got out of this that she needed to make sure the Doctor repaired that particular bridge. Jack merely stood, observing them all, arms folded, happy to let the Doctor take charge. "I don't know you." The Ninth continued, "None of you."

But River was undaunted and Eleven made as if to stop her before she said something but clearly he was too slow. "Then allow me to introduce myself." River barked back at him, drawing the Ninth's attention as his sneer said 'impress me'. "I am Professor River Song... your wife."

That word '_wife' _hit with the same force that Rose's appearance had on Sandshoes, there was utter silence and then a whole lot of chaos from every cell but Clara's and the Doctors. Staring back at each other through the cells they both stood, this momentary distraction good enough; the Doctor nodded and as one they pulled their sonic's out pointing them directly opposite one another.

"You can do this Clara." He told her quietly and she braced herself as the bickering and shouting from all around became nothing but white noise. She and the Doctor hit the buttons on their respective sonic's simultaneously.

The sonic reverberated all around her cell and Clara fell to her knees rocking with the agony as she clapped her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block it; knowing from the horrified faces of those around them who had finally noticed their synchronous actions, that she was probably bleeding from her ears. There was a sound cutting through the sonic and it took her a moment to realise it was her voice screaming. Her hand waivered, her sonic growing heavy as she fought to keep the instruction strong twinned with the Doctor's.

The energy cell flickered and with a groan and crackle of static the barrier in her cell fell, leaving it open to the walkway. Clara dropped the sonic and curled up in a ball, her hand covering her ears as she found herself utterly unable to move beyond the agony as she shook violently, willing it to pass.

Voices filtered through garbled and muted, she raised her head blinking, mouths were opening and closing and she couldn't hear them, Clara shook her head violently, trying to dislodge the muffled feeling but nothing happened. She wondered if she was permanently deaf, it was a momentary panic amid the more pressing concerns of survival. Her feet were too unsteady and so she crawled out of her cell, looking up at _her_ Doctor who was at his cell wall, his ears bleeding too, but at least he was on his feet. Unlike the others he wasn't pointlessly mouthing instructions to her he was staring hard. His instructions already given in his all too brief telepathic exchange before a wall of energy had divided them.

"Right. Right." She mumbled to herself, stumbling to her feet and holding her sonic firmly in her right hand, sweeping it over the floor in the walkway, searching for the transmat signals and disabling them before they could sweep her away again. That done she raised her head to her Doctor, he stood impassively waiting for her to act as she lifted her sonic to his cell. He nodded once and she hit the button, aiming it at the weakest point where it had been able to penetrate and twin with hers. The Doctor fell to his knees inside as the damage to his battered ears continued; both of the their cells were weaker as the paradox their destruction would create required less power to contain than one of his younger selves. But as she watched him rocking back and forth, her sonic causing waves of untold agony she shut it off, hitting the energy wall with her fist in frustration and not caring that it hissed and singed the skin there.

"It's no good!" she shouted through it to him. "They've got yours cranked up higher than mine was." She bit out as he opened his eyes fixing them on her, with his hands still firmly pressed over his ears as he stumbled to the front towards her. He didn't need to say a word which was good because she seriously doubted she'd have heard them anyway; part three of his previous instruction clicking into place, modified slightly given this little hiccup. She nodded and turned on her heel, stumbling along the walkway on shaking legs and looking for a console or a panel, something with controls, as she passed the others in the cells as they were watching her avidly.

The white room with its white walkway was all there was. A white end with flat smooth walls, Clara turned. What if there was no out? Clara pointed her sonic at the walls in the corridor end, sweeping it over the floor until she felt the answering beep of technology. Whirling on it Clara almost cried out in relief as a panel revealed itself on the wall, the surface sliding away to reveal the inner mechanism.

Feint noise rumbled and Clara glanced back at the cells, the Doctors and his various companions were all still up against the sides mouthing and waving, all except her Doctor who was merely watching her calmly. Clara waved her hands over her ears and dismissed them all, trying to make it clear that they could yell all they wanted but she was thankfully oblivious. Yanking out the wires she found the touch activated console and with shaking fingers began doing what thanks to her little jaunt in the wifi now came naturally... hacking into alien technology. The controls were complex and she battled with them silently as she struggled not to look at her Doctor, to see him waiting expectantly, entrusting all of their lives to her. What became glaringly obvious to her almost immediately was that the Doctor had been right, this was a prison designed for him... and knowing him he'd probably escape out of the cell at some point. The transmat devices were designed to work only when remotely triggered. Any attempt, like the one she'd just made inside their system to reverse the flow caused an overload and they were all rendered useless, frying the system. But at least she supposed they weren't all about to be relocated permanently.

Clara slammed her hand into the console angrily. "Transmats a bust!" she shouted back at whichever Doctor could hear her. "Sneaky bastards have got some seriously paranoid circuitry in here!"

Clara glanced up, they had all stopped banging and mouthing and were just watching her. "Wow that's creepy, no pressure at all." She muttered returning her gaze to the console. Ok so she couldn't beam them out... but maybe she could send out a signal. Her sonic in her mouth she worked the controls, writing a new code to send a very different kind of message. She just prayed the Old Girl wherever she was, was listening.

If she could have heard it, she imagined the sound of the wheezing engine would have been like music to her ears as the Blue Box materialised around her and Clara exclaimed in sheer delight as she stood finally inside the Console room. Somewhat relieved to find it was still 'her' TARDIS and not one of the other Doctors, she wasn't sure how that might have gone. Heading straight to the controls she flipped the switches, directing the Old Girl to the one cell she needed to first. "So paradox containing cell," she declared "just you try and keep out a TARDIS!" She hit the wibbly lever, only one word coming to mind. "Geronimo."

* * *

**[A few minutes ago]**

The Doctor watched in admiration as she made her slow way past the divide between their cells, his own ears were ringing but unlike hers his hearing remained astute as she reached the end of the corridor; her sonic out as she searched for the tell tale signs of technology that she could use to free them. Three sets of eyes rounded on him and he stared resolutely back, the question in the air as her sonic buzzed and beeped, revealing the panels she needed and in doing so the depth of his feelings for the girl were exposed. He felt his fists clench, she had forced him into it again, forced him to risk her life for his; it was unending.

The others and their companions pointlessly turned, trying to shout instruction, not that his impossible girl needed it. "Trust me, if it can be done, she'll do it." He informed having to shout over the roar as he watched her, freed in a way to talk and simply admire her whilst she remained oblivious to it within her wall of silence. "My impossible girl once hacked the Dalek pathweb."

Four sets of eyes registered the feat that was and he nodded at River, accepting her into their little unspoken group amongst his past selves.

Clara's frustrated cry startled them all as she declared the transmats a lost cause.

"You were saying?" the Ninth crossed his arms, unimpressed.

"Just wait." The Doctor informed his younger, no less angry self.

And just like that his two beautiful girls were together, the wheezing sound of her engines bringing hope where once more there had been none. The Doctor stepped back into his cell flinging his arms wide as the TARDIS materialised around him, tearing through the paradox cell with all the ease of a woman on a mission. The Doctor opened his eyes in his TARDIS as they fell on the sight of Clara, her small delicate hands working feverishly at the controls to rescue the rest of him. He crossed his arms and simply stood back and watched, this was her moment and he wanted his other selves to see her now like this and know unequivocally that there was hope for them, even if it was only for a little while until they forgot she even existed. One by one Clara guided the TARDIS through the paradox cells, his Impossible Girl and his Old Girl working in tandem and it took his breath away.

His Tenth self as he materialised was too focussed on seeing Rose on his too soon felt loss of her to see it, but the Eleventh came to stand beside him and the Doctor knew he understood and with a gentle nod of his head gave his consent.

There they stood, all four of himself safe and sound, their previous companions gathered around them. The Doctor strode through them not seeing nor caring for their embraces, his arms wide he enveloped the one that mattered to him most now; her small form seemingly so fragile in his arms. Perhaps it was relief, the elation at escaping certain death... or perhaps it was simply the reaction of a man to the woman he loved when she surprised him yet again. He caught her face in his hands and drew her lips in, kissing her soundly as he propelled her into the TARDIS console. Her answering kiss was just as fierce, just as desperate as she tangled her hands in his short hair and he crushed her to him, their three hearts beating in tandem as he focused on drowning in the feel of her that simply never got old. This risk had worked, but by God was it getting old fast.

"Sorry to interrupt... but we are still inside enemy territory here." The Ninth's heavy accent didn't even phase him as the Doctor failed to relinquish Clara's mouth. He heard the Ninth huff, before sensing him and his other selves take the controls. Reluctantly the Doctor pulled back, cradling her face and dropping his forehead to hers. His fingers felt tacky and he traced the cause across her face finding her bloodied ears with a flicker of concern at the damage he'd insisted she wreak once more upon herself for him. He turned her head both ways examining them, she'd need medical attention he'd have to take her to New New Earth, to the cats, they'd restore her hearing in no time. Silently he cussed himself, somehow he'd slipped back into old habits and this time he'd had her risk herself for not just one of him, but all four of him and their companions. It would never end, he knew that now, this was just his life his curse; even if he did nothing it would find him. But he'd done it, despite the risk, despite what it had cost him to see her in agony like that, he'd risked her. Why? He dropped his forehead to hers, feeling the answering brush of her mind as he made sure she was truly fine, feeling her swell of pride and elation that he'd finally trusted that she was up to the challenge and that it had worked. Perhaps there was hope for him after all? It was a shared thought that gave him a rare moment of peace.

"I'm fine." She breathed, dropping her head to his chest. He held the back of her head there and dropped a kiss to her forehead, knowing that she was beyond exhausted her body hardly in any shape to stand, let alone receive his onslaught of emotions. He cursed his timing. Never right. He slipped an arm around her waist and guided her over to the seat on railings he didn't need to get her all the way there, his former companions were there to take her from him, fussing over her and thanking her in their own ways; although the lingering suspicion of him remained he noted. He doubted he ever would be again the people person they had become accustomed to.

Content she would be fine he turned back to his former selves approaching the console, staring at them all individually and daring them to call him on his actions, both from back in the cell and here and now. They didn't oblige him, a silent agreement to let what happened in the privacy of each regeneration be their own business.

"I see you've changed the desktop." The Tenth looked around. "It's a bit... minimalist." He acknowledged. "I don't like it." He quipped his face turning up in distaste.

The Ninth rolled his eyes. "That's what I like about it." He looked around at the visible time-vortex as they hurtled through the transparent walls which had amazed Clara so much the first time and which had been mostly retained.

"So where too?" The Eleventh tried to break the tension, glancing around and noticing too much, the touches in this control room that were clearly the input of someone that wasn't _him_. He wondered if the effect of Clara was as clearly stamped over his own face as they were over the Old Girl. Transparent grace... it was Clara all over.

Forcing his mind back to the current predicament with some effort he took charge, he was after all the oldest, that made him the de facto leader, particularly as it was _his_ TARDIS. "We return you to the points in time you were taken, your respective TARDIS's should be waiting exactly where you left them." Smoke began pouring out of the top of the vortex manipulator and the Doctor hit the cooling levers with urgency "I'd suggest quickly before the Paradox of the four of us together rips the TARDIS apart."

Doctor by Doctor, the TARDIS emptied, the Ninth departing first and taking the ever beguilingly innocent Rose, the still young with much to learn Mickey and the achingly mortal Captain Jack with him. Jack of course had done just about everything he could to imprint himself on Clara's heart before he went clearly enamoured, but the Doctor knew just as the soon to be immortal man would, that there was no competing, she'd made her choice some time ago.

The Tenth was more shaken when he left, the ghost of Rose leaving a heavy mark on him that the indomitable Donna and the unshakeable Martha would have to work hard to get him through... right up until the moment he stepped into his own TARDIS and forgot all of this of course.

The Eleventh hovered, there was no taking this one back to his TARDIS, the Doctor had to deliver him straight to his fated point, to Lake Silencio, to the Teselecta the transmat having ripped him from it and it's compression field. The Doctor handed him a remote trigger he'd held onto for a rainy day and placed his hand on his previous selves shoulder as he watched the other man's soon to be family depart, "You won't remember this, but on the off chance you do... Trenzalore isn't what you think, not anymore." The Eleventh stood in the doorway, staring back at both of them as Clara took her place beside him, her hand slipping into his as she clearly resisted the urge to embrace the man that had been her Doctor before him, his burgeoning curiosity for the woman that would become his mystery to solve evident.

The Eleventh sighed, nodding, now was not the time he acknowledged his brow heavy with the weight of his secrets as he tipped his Stetson at them. "Thank you Clara." He intoned and they both felt the weight of those words, the feel of his ghost as it swept over them both, finally releasing its hold.

The TARDIS doors closed and he squeezed Clara's hand tightly, feeling her arms slide around his waist. He dropped his head to hers and kissed the top, feeling the tension bleeding out of her now that they were alone. He titled her chin, letting her see his words. "How about a trip to New New Earth?" he smiled and she nodded as he cupped his hands over her ears, pressing a kiss to each one. The Doctor turned, her hand tightly in his as he activated the TARDIS pitching them into the vortex, just the three of them... just like it was meant to be


	18. Chapter 18

**WARNING THIS CHAPTER IS RATED MA (NC17) FOR SEXUAL CONTENT **

* * *

The cat nurses fixed her right up, not that it wasn't a bit odd being surrounded by talking cats that were really people and apparently the best medics in the Universe. The Sisters of Plenitude he'd called them, right before he said he wasn't taking a risk with her because he wanted to make sure she could hear every snarky word he threw her way in future.

Clara wasn't arguing, the silence had been terrifying.

"Feeling better?" his voice carried and she turned to smile at him, pulling up the hospital sheet and patting the bed beside her, inviting him up. He paused for a moment, still unsure of himself before he strode into the room and eased himself onto the bed, shuffling her aside to make room for him as he stretched his legs out beside hers those massive boots of his still in place.

"Much better." She admitted, taking the initiative and curling into him, her hands going around his waist as she laid her head on his chest. "The cat nurses have been taking care of me, brand new ear drums and some new synapses to receive them because they all got fried, no biggy." She lied smiling up at him.

The Doctor smiled, she could feel it against her head as he kissed the top of it. "Yes, they are quite remarkably good at fixing humans, for aliens that is."

"And you, are you ok, after seeing all those other you's?" She felt the thumps of his hearts alter slightly giving him away beneath her ear.

"My past is my past Clara. I have little choice but to detach from what has been, as you've seen a head full of memories would drive you mad otherwise."

Clara sighed. "A simple 'I will be' would have sufficed Doctor." She felt him tense momentarily but he chose to let it pass and she felt his arms tighten around her.

"How is your head?" he asked after she had begun to doze against the comforting feel of his fingers brushing through her scalp. She knew he was probably resisting the urge to simply sink into it and look for himself, which she appreciated.

"Fine. Tidy. Like I have filing cabinets full of things that I can pull out and look at, but at least they're ordered now, put away until I need them."

The Doctor nodded. "Good."

Clara closed her eyes, "Like a Time Lord's brain," he tensed fractionally. "Did you think I wouldn't notice, wouldn't remember?" she snorted at his clear unease. "You conveniently tidied all the Time Lady versions of me near the top, for ease of access I assume. Hardly a challenge at all to take a peek and see what blueprints it was you'd worked to in order to fix me."

The Doctor's fingers stilled against her and she sensed an argument coming as she splayed her hand out over his hearts. "I'm not mad." She whispered. "After all, it was the shape you knew best."

"Yes well that idiot had left you in a right ruddy mess before I got in there. Talk about a cowboy in that bloody Stetson. It was like he was a toddler tidying his room by shoving everything into various cupboards and draws until they were full to bursting. No order to it whatsoever everything a mere jostle away from tumbling right out."

Clara chuckled, acknowledging that was exactly what he'd done. "He was in a bit of rush I think, trying to pull us both out of his time-stream at the time."

She felt him muttering about that. "No damn excuse. If something's precious to you, you should take your time with it, take absolute care."

Clara raised her head, unable to simply ignore his words now, spoken in the softest voice she'd ever heard him use with her. Her eyes locked onto his and she found he was having no trouble meeting hers, apparently unapologetic finally for the way he felt.

"Precious?" she couldn't help the smile that curled her lips as she felt him place his hand over the one she'd left over his hearts.

"Fishing for more compliments my dear; was that one insufficient?" he smirked, a flicker of irritation crossing his features at what he clearly considered her impertinence when he was trying to make a gesture. Clara leant in closer, bringing her lips within inches of his, she felt his breathing falter as his eyes lowered to track her lips.

"Tell me to stop Doctor." She was close enough that their skin of their cheeks touched. "Because this is your last chance. Then you better send me away, because nothing short of that is going to stop me from doing this." Clara closed the distance her lips brushing his lightly, delicately. He didn't respond and Clara pulled back a fraction lifting her eyes to his, trying to understand what was playing out behind those ancient eyes.

"I didn't tell you to stop." He smirked and she gave an answering one as she felt his hands slide up to cradle her face, but he didn't move in, content it seemed to let her be the one to take this step. So Clara captured his lips, exploring as softly but as earnestly as she dared, there was no thought in her mind in that moment except pure elation as he kissed her back, his lips taking more care with her now than he'd ever shown in their previous kisses. The last one he'd given her in the TARDIS had been particularly memorable as she'd almost dissolved into a puddle at his feet with the intensity he'd put into it, her every nerve ending on fire... which at the time had almost been enough to do her in. But here, now, he was excruciatingly slow, her tongue seeking access and being denied at almost every turn as his lips slid away from her mouth and travelled down lower to her ear lobe.

"My Clara." He whispered and her newly sensitive hearing sent the vibrations humming through her and she found herself trembling slightly at the sensation. His hands moved then to her waist and Clara obliged, shifting up to her knees and sliding one over his legs as his hands slid to her hips guiding her.

"My Doctor." She replied, staring down at him from her position of power straddling him as she was.

His gentle kisses ended there and she fought for breath as his mouth warred with hers, the slip of a hospital gown offered just enough protection for her modesty and she let out a cry of delight as his hands slid beneath the fabric until he was touching the bare skin of her thighs.

"Tell me to stop." He teased mirroring her earlier words, his lips a wicked grin that she captured quickly, not wanting him to hesitate further. It was something she'd always admired about him, his bloody minded stubbornness she decided, as his hands rose without preamble to grasp her ass cheeks. The sensation had her gasping in surprise as he squeezed them and she involuntarily ground against his hips, drawing an answering groan of delight from him.

Perhaps it was fast, she didn't know, she'd never been in a relationship with a 2000 year old alien before. Even her memories of Time Lady's were coming up woefully blank on this, most of his kind didn't get to live that long or have interspecies relationships. But she became woefully aware that she might not have been prepared for the way it felt to have a man like him wanton beneath her, his fingers sliding with almost practiced ease between her legs. And just like that he had utterly changed everything between them without so much as a pause. Clara threw her head back and tried not to cry out at the surprise of his touch, the confidence as he slid them within her, instantly setting to a rhythm that had her biting down on her lower lip and rocking her hips against him. Her eyes opened onto his to find he was watching her intently. "Clever hands remember." He rasped and she was breathless to answer him.

Clara's eyes fluttered closed as he drove her relentlessly towards an orgasm when only moments ago she had been concerned her simple kisses would have been too much for him. Clara couldn't help it she was coming apart and that was before he decided that she could take another of his clever digits, which he slid in alongside his other, his thumb busy circling on the outside and continuing the build of pleasure within her as she rocked her hips with increasing speed against him. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, it was supposed to be a slow languid seduction, where she could prove she was every bit his equal and that they really were ready for this next step, not this... It was the last coherent thought she had as he leant forward his fingers not losing a moments contact as he kissed her, his tongue moving in tandem with each thrust within her. His mind brushed hers and Clara came utterly undone in his hands, her scream caught by his mouth as he inhaled the sound of her ecstasy. His mind, that same mind she'd felt slip within hers so many times before was ablaze with something different now as it slid over her consciousness, it's intent utterly changed and she felt it as surely as the clever fingers within her, stroking and pushing areas of her brain she didn't even know the names of, until she was weak and panting above him. Time Lord sex she knew was different she remembered that much, but the sudden wash of sensations it could evoke? Apparently her memory hadn't been good enough to accurately express just how incredible it could be... and she hadn't even touched him yet.

"_Patience_." His voice chuckled within her mind and she made a conscious effort to pull back out of his touch, separating their mouths as she panted heavily, staring into those slate blue eyes of his which had darkened with lust, for her. His fingers withdrew, their wicked work done and he settled them contentedly on her hips. Clara kept her eyes on his, lowering her hand until she could feel the hard heat of him straining against the dark material of his trousers. Her lip took further abuse as she worried it now with her teeth suddenly nervous, her hands trembling as she slid her hands down to his belt, finding the simple leather suddenly to be one of the most complicated things she'd ever encountered.

The Doctor, _this_ Doctor wasn't known for his patience, so she thought it was rich that he was preaching it to her when he swept forward and caught her lips in his, those clever hands rising along her back beneath her hospital slip and bringing them closer into contact. But it had the effect she imagined he'd desired, her hands stopped trembling and she freed the belt buckle with determined ease as his hands began to trace patterns that a dim distant part of her brain recognised as old high Gallifreyan. Those hands stilled and he moaned deeply into her mouth as she finally was able to slip a hand inside and touch the pulsing heat of him, wrapping her hand around it tightly and absorbing the way his whole body bucked beneath her. His hands would be infinitely more clever than hers she knew that, but she had always been a quick study and she was motivated as she let her soft hands slide along him, her second hand lowering to grasp his balls and tease them in tandem with her slow grip.

His head fell back against her hospital bed and his hips lifted in time with her strokes as she responded to his cues stroking faster, harder, letting her nail drag from the tip and down the inside, drawing a hiss from him that had his hands rising from her back to firmly claim her breasts. The loose slip of her gown posing him little to no hindrance, as she tried not to lose focus at the feel of those clever fingers making her nipples their new target. Not to be outdone Clara lowered her head, intending to bring him to the same heights he'd forced her to only moments ago, her mouth opened and she felt his hands force her upwards sharply.

"No." He rasped and Clara blinked in surprise as he captured her lips again. "It's been far too long dear girl." He all but apologised, his lips sucking roughly on her pulse point, the feint feel of pressure there letting her know she'd have one hell of a mark as she felt his teeth brush it. His hands lowered to her hips and she tried not to let her surprise filter through as he demonstrated that superior strength, lifting her easily until she was poised over the hard length of him. "Let me in." He rasped and Clara knew there was a dual plea there as she lowered herself over him, dropping any mental barrier she had as she felt him fill her in both respects. The sensation was too much for her human brain and she cried out as an orgasm rocked her violently at the contact. She collapsed against him, feeling his hard length still poised within her, as he slowly began to roll their hips together.

His mind was the real danger she realised as it sought out every erogenous point within her, flaring them all at once and leaving her a near whimpering mass. She had to get control, had to act she realised opening her eyes and pressing her own fingers to his temples, willing herself inside. "Let me in." She insisted just as he had, knowing that her feeble human telepathy was not equipped for it, but that he could gift her the ability if he chose. The feel of him, their joined hips rocking insistently together was nothing compared to the feel of sliding into his mind, of feeling the sensation of him as he felt what she felt, their shared pleasure mingling and heightening. Clara focussed on the spots inside of her own mind that he was manipulating, like a musician with an instrument and she attempted to duplicate it, drawing on the limited memories she had of this with other Time Lord's.

"Don't!" he snarled, tearing her hands away, and kissing her hard, "Don't think of them, those other men." He hissed, his breath coming in short bursts as their coupling became more frantic and he pulled her hips down harder into him. Clara didn't need to be in his mind to recognise the flare of jealousy for what it was... that he'd wanted to be her 'first' Time Lord and yet somehow he wasn't. Clara merely nodded understanding his point of view so clearly like this as she placed her fingers back on his temples and without preamble she was inside his mind again, probing gently at the parts of his central nervous system she knew could elicit the response she required, if she could just keep focussed. Not easy when he was already playing hers like a fiddle. The answer to how to replicate it for him presented itself in the most obvious way as her pleasure spilled into his mind as she was utterly unable to hold it back and she wrapped it around him, letting him feel exactly what he was doing to her, the growing swell in her abdomen, the pressure building.

There was no warning, the sensation so deep as their combined pleasures beat against one another inside their linked minds, their hips rocking together relentlessly as Clara felt her last and most powerful orgasm over take her. The sensation of it flooding him and dragging him over the edge as he pumped his hips into her, finishing their physical coupling as his mind cradled their mental one.

She had screamed in release, she knew this because the sound of it had drawn one of the nurses to her room in a panic. Clara stared over her shoulder at the bewildered face of the cat nurse who's mouth was opening and words were coming out as she barged into the room, but for the life of her Clara couldn't understand a word of it. All she could feel was the waves of pleasure rippling through her entire body and crashing behind her eyes as he remained in her mind soaking in the warm afterglow.

"Leave." The Doctor barked at the nurse his mind caressing hers gently, the cat hesitated only a fraction of a second before hastily retreating from the room, clearly terrified by the utter no-nonsense tone he'd used.

Clara returned her eyes to his, the intensity etched there was breathtaking and she raised her hand to brush her thumbs over his face, leaning forward to press a soft kiss. Slowly she felt him withdraw from her mind and the loss was palpable inside of her, she wondered if she would feel whole without it there now she'd felt him like that, in utter abandon, freed within her.

"That was..." she didn't have a word for it so she used a Gallifreyan one that she plucked from that top filing cabinet. "Rashejis." It translated into something like resplendent joy and from his answering smile she thought she'd clearly made the right decision.

"Your pronunciations terrible" he chuckled, "But I appreciate the sentiment." He dropped a kiss to her nose. "I prefer mindblowing though if you don't mind, I've always thought human words do it much more justice."

"I had no idea if it would work like that between us, I mean I remember it, but, my mind's not exactly the best projector." Clara sighed and he stroked her forehead with his index finger.

"Oh you project just fine. Besides, it helps that I've mapped every corner in here now." He drew her forehead to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss there. "You could say I have a front row seat to every naughty little thought that you can conjure inside it."

Clara smirked. "Whatever hot stuff. How about we get out of here before they call security to escort you out of here, I'm supposed to be on bed rest." The Doctor moved, she had no idea how he did it but she was suddenly beneath him, her arms pinned beside her head.

"Don't worry about bed rest, I'm fairly certain I can ensure you remain on your back for some length of time." Clara opened her mouth to protest only to find it full with his as he kissed her soundly. Although she was possibly in a mild state of shock at this suddenly somewhat more playful and defiantly flirtier side of him coming out, not to mention that she had apparently just taken a fairly monumental step without so much as a backward glance. She'd half expected for him to zip up his fly and escort her back to the TARDIS like nothing had happened.

An alarm went off and Clara pulled her mouth from his, realising her room was flashing an odd amber colour. "And that would be security." The Doctor muttered. "Right definitely time to go, your clothes are in the top draw, I'll go and sign the paperwork." He reluctantly released her and readjusted himself, his zip flying up and he stood there looking exactly as she'd imagined and feared, like nothing had happened. She hadn't even got his socks off she noted with distaste. He turned to leave and she hadn't moved, he clapped his hands together. "Chop chop my dear, unless you think that's all this old man's got in him." He waggled those eyebrows suggestively and Clara rolled her eyes, biting back a comment and hopping out of the bed.

Perhaps modesty was something of forgone conclusion but she turned her back on him as she pulled the hospital shift over her body. Surprised when she felt his hand against her spine, his other brushing the hair from her neck, his lips pressed there. "You never need hide anything from me Clara." He breathed, "Not now, not ever." Then he was gone, striding from the room and leaving her shivering as the brief heat of his touch left her bereft. Damn it if that man didn't know how to push her every button. Clara hurriedly dressed, pulling the dress over her head and hopping into her boots as she retrieved the leather jacket, running her hands quickly through her hair and heading out the door.

It wasn't hard to find the Doctor he was shouting in his angry Scottish lilt at the cat people and waving the psychic paper at them insistently.

"Please Doctor. A man of your learning, surely you must want to help?" One of the cat nurses was imploring and Clara frowned, coming up to stand beside him. "Your skills could be invaluable and he has asked for you personally."

Clara slid up beside him, trying not to notice how his eyes scanned her now, clearly taking stock of the curves his hands had so recently travelled and she tried not to blush at the attention. "What's wrong, I take it we're not leaving?" she asked more quietly than they were.

The Doctor sighed. "A small matter. It seems that my presence has been requested with another patient."

Clara frowned. "You know someone here?"

The cat nurse gave her an appraising look. "Miss Oswald, I really feel that you should not be out of bed. The trauma to your ears whilst severe was nothing compared to the psychic damage you had suffered which seems to have been a much more prolonged disturbance."

"Oh I'm fine up here, trust me." Clara tapped her forehead, "The Doctor took care of it."

The nurse gave her a look that suggested she knew exactly what the Doctor had done in her mind and Clara looked away guiltily. "Yes well, I must bow to the Doctor's superior credentials, he has signed your release papers, however I request that you please take it slowly my dear."

"Oh don't worry nurse, she'll get her bed rest." The Doctor smiled thinly at them, grabbing her hand and dragging her along beside him without looking back.

Clara tried not to giggle, but she felt like a teenager sneaking around behind the bike shed's at school again with one of the older boys. "So where are we going, who's the patient?"

The Doctor didn't look at her, but his tone was strained. "The Face of Boe."


	19. Chapter 19

Clara came to a crashing halt behind the Doctor, she'd seen a lot, forgotten more, but the sight of the massive floating head in the jar really was something that took your breath away. The Doctor's hand was gripped firmly in hers as he pulled her behind him, his strides measured and even as he approached the glass.

"So, we meet again." He inclined his head at the giant floating head.

Clara had a moment to wonder when they'd met before when her head was quite literally bombarded with images, memories, thoughts, emotions and sensations... my god the sensations, she stumbled the Doctor having to steady her as her still highly sensitised body responded to the overt sexual imagery she was receiving. It took her a moment to recognise herself in the hot mess of memories from her time as Oswin.

"Jack?" she managed weakly staring up at the giant head unable to form a sentence more than that word as his telepathic bombarding became something more subtle. Clara spun to look at the Doctor. "This is Jack Harkness?" she asked, feeling a little queasy at the thought of what it must be like for him, to become this disembodied floating head after the physical creature he had always been.

The Doctor peered up into the glass. "There has been some speculation about that, but given as he seems to be keen to share all of his secrets this time around I believe we have a definitive answer." The Doctor cocked his head. "I am sorry old friend, this was not an easy fate for you I can imagine."

Images flashed before her eyes and Clara realised she must have been getting the same as the Doctor as he nodded, seeing the life he'd lived, the joy it was still capable of bringing him, the wonder. And the knowledge that he knew it would end, one day soon, when he had blessedly completed the last task Rose had foreseen for him. Of course Clara highly doubted that the Doctor was getting every one of those images interspersed with what were unmistakable mental brushes of affection and longing. Clara looked away, not sure in the least how to respond, or if she even could.

"Still flirting Jack?" the Doctor admonished, taking in their exchange. "Honestly." He muttered. "Always after my girls weren't you." The Doctor moved forward his hand going to the glass surrounding the giant head. "What do you need from me?"

If there was an instruction, or some communication given Clara wasn't included in it, because the Doctor sighed loudly and nodded an affirmative. "Very well. But I am not an errand boy, this is a onetime thing." The Giant face nodded in acknowledgement, clearly a bargain had been struck.

The abrupt absence of both of their telepathic touches was noticeable and the Doctor turned around and gave her a sharp look which made her think they were talking about her. "Absolutely not." The Doctor snapped back at the head. "She is off limits."

"Are you two talking about me?"

"Yes." The Doctor snapped. "Jack here was admiring the redecorating I'd been doing in your head. Seems he wanted to take a stroll through it." Clara blanched and the Doctor clearly tried not to notice, she was having more than a little difficulty reconciling the huge face before her with the dashing Captain that she still had locked away in her fantasies somewhere inside that same head he wanted to stroll through.

"Just so you know, this is weird, even by your standards Doctor." Clara managed weakly. "How did he get this way?" She of course made the obvious mistake of not talking to Jack himself, he seemed slightly affronted by that and she winced at the sudden assault of memories on her already overused brain as he showed her the moment Rose had resurrected him, always. "Wow. That, is really a lot of information." She tried to shake it loose, perhaps if she hadn't become so familiar with telepathy or people rummaging around in her head she wouldn't have noticed it, but she felt him slide his distinctive imprint along the boundaries of the part of her mind she had declared 'private'. Most of which the Doctor had so recently been ploughing through. She mentally wrapped his knuckles and his presence withdrew to the outskirts and simply sat there watching her, taking her measure.

_"He's changing." _The sound of him, his voice was different, she wondered if he even remembered that first voice produced by human vocal chords. _"You have been keeping your word Sleeping Beauty."_ His memory certainly seemed fine she noted.

Clara stepped forwards towards the glass, lifting her hand to it and trying not to imagine living for Billions of years. This was the creature that the TARDIS had so nearly confused her with, her impossibility so like Jack's but if anything her fate had been kind compared to this; eternal death... not life. _"We could have made quite a pair." _ He insisted still, but she got the distinct sense of melancholy and regret tinged with it this time as he accepted their opposite reflections, both a result of treading just that little too close to the Doctor.

_"Are you able to block him?" _Clara thought back at him and the giant face smiled, the answer presenting itself that he'd been blocking the Doctor access into her mind since she'd stepped into this room, this was as close to a private conversation as she might have again. _"Does he mean it... is it real, this change in him?" _she almost wanted to ask 'does he mean what happened between them', but she knew enough about the Doctor to know he never did anything he didn't mean.

Jack's distinctive chuckled filled her head and she wondered if he'd pulled the memory of it straight from her. _"He means to keep you for as long as he can. You have given him little option but to change if he wishes to accomplish this."_

Not quite the answer she wanted but she imagined it was the best she might get. _"Do you know his future Jack... have you seen even that, seen beyond this face?" _She knew it was a mistake to ask even before the images started crashing over her and she pressed her hand into the glass between them gritting her teeth against the onslaught. Billions of years and the Doctor blazing through time like a comet trailing fire and ice. Now, then, always. Face beyond face. Loss beyond loss; descents into darkness and rises into untold glory. Clara opened her eyes taking in the huge impassive and so very ancient ones of a man that had watched it all. _"Is it fixed, all of it, any of it?"_

_ "There are no fixed points, not truly. Even I will have my end, it's simply taken some while longer to achieve."_ There was a certain melancholy in that but no bitterness and Clara wondered at it. Jack always had been extraordinary, she supposed it shouldn't come as a shock to find he still was.

Clara nodded accepting his words and trying to digest the images, unable to shake the names that had reverberated around her skull, _'the Beast', 'the Valeyard', 'the Oncoming Storm'. _All somewhere out there waiting for him to take them on as his mantle. But there would be other names, other stories, _'the Wanderer', 'old Father Time', 'the Lonely God', _but always, always there was _'the Doctor'._

Clara tears pooled and she clenched her fist against the glass willing it away, refusing to break down, the Doctor would be watching her, trying to understand what was passing between them even if Jack was blocking it, and he could read her like a book. But Jack, the Face of Boe, he wasn't done. _"There is also this." _

Images flashed and Clara faltered.

Her hand dropped away from the glass and she took a reflexive step back, shock filtering through as she tried to process the image that lingered; it wouldn't be one she'd soon forget that much she knew.

The Doctor's hand went to her back and she tried not to flinch away, trying to accept the comfort he was trying to offer with it, but not sure right now she could cope as she felt the image sink back behind one of her mental barriers, locking it away as tightly as she could manage where it couldn't do any more harm.

_ "You're wrong."_ Clara insisted back at the Face of Boe... because the Jack Harkness she knew would have never so carelessly thrown a potentially time-line destroying bone at her.

The face merely smiled. _"On occasion."_ He admitted. _"Remember who's heart you cradle. Remember what he is. The Universe is split into those that love him and those that fear him, that is not by accident."_

Clara pursed her lips staring at the giant head, realising slowly that the Doctor was scowling back at him too, but he was muttering his own little irritations and Clara wondered if they'd been having separate mental conversations with the Face, was that even possible?

But clearly the Doctor was as disturbed as she was, she felt him give her more than a gentle mental nudge. "Time to go Clara. I fear we are outstaying our welcome here." The Doctor held his hand out to Clara and she grasped it firmly letting him draw her away from the tank as she lifted her hand. But her eyes lingered on the enormous face, the personality of the man as big as ever as he stared back unflinchingly at her, her fingers raised to her lips and she kissed them, letting it fall away towards him as she felt the unmistakeable answering sensation of lips over hers that whispered through her head like a gentle caress. _"Goodbye."_ She aimed at the head, knowing that this would absolutely have to be the last time she'd stand before Jack Harkness... because she simply couldn't do this again.

The TARDIS loomed and the Doctor marched them onwards, clearly distracted with his own thoughts, all of that earlier fire and passion, his flirtatious banter, seemed to have bled out of them with the reality of Jack's fate, acting very much like a lake of frozen water once had. She recalled having been running from the image of Jack then too, all be it for very different reasons.

"So what did he ask you to do?" Clara queried as they crossed the threshold into the TARDIS and he headed straight for the console.

The Doctor glanced back at her, seemingly confused to see her standing there before he visibly seemed to try and bring himself back into the moment. "Just an errand. Destiny paradox he needs me to complete."

Clara crossed her arms, getting the feeling his was fobbing her off, which given how not very long ago at all he was quite thoroughly focused on her was more than a little off putting, his mood swings were giving her serious whiplash, how could someone flit hot and cold like that?

"And?" she finally pressed when he didn't pick up on her non to subtle cue, her foot tapping impatiently against the floor.

The Doctor pursed his lips glancing at her and seemed to weigh up his answer. "And... I need to make sure that his systems are linked into the central power grid of New New York."

Clara nodded. "And he'd need that because?" it was like drawing blood from a stone.

The Doctor sighed, pushing a button half heartedly. "Because one day the Sandshoes version of me is going to waltz into a New New Earth that has suffered a cataclysm and the only thing holding it all together is the Face of Boe."

Clara let his words sink in understanding them through a combination of his profound sorrow which she was picking up on just fine. That and her own vague memory of being trapped inside a car for decades on a motorway going nowhere fast, before manoeuvring her car into place just in time to catch an insane man that had been clambering over them outside. That had clearly been the Sandshoes Doctor she realised with an odd jolt.

Glancing at her Doctor she felt a stab of pity, he really did have the most appalling luck, his entire regeneration so far seemed to consist of running around clearing up his past selves messes. This one though she imagined he could have done without, particularly now he knew just exactly 'who' the Face of Boe was.

From what Jack had said, she understood that somehow, whatever he was about to do would mean the end of his life; and he was dragging the Doctor into it. "Your helping him set up his own death." She crossed the distance between them, her hand going out to his as he held it over the wibbly lever, he took it gratefully in his and she felt her heart break just a little. Jack had lived billions of years and still, here was the Doctor inexplicably outliving him. "Does he die well?" she asked quietly, wondering if of the millions of deaths Jack had suffered, the last would mean as much.

The Doctor smiled thinly. "Of course." His smile widened. "He saves them all. Captain Jack, humanities great protector." The smile faded just a little and he squeezed her hand for support. "He did what I never could... he stayed still for them."


	20. Chapter 20

Clara stumbled inside the TARDIS, the Doctor fast on her heels as he shoved the door closed and she couldn't help but laugh. "Not helping." He snapped, charging towards the centre console looking more flustered than she'd ever seen this unruffled version of him.

"Oh I don't know I think it's kind of cute." She admitted, enjoying seeing him squirm just a little.

He didn't even dignify that with a response, just began frantically pushing buttons. "Another one to add the banned list dear." He tapped the TARDIS console lightly, half talking to himself.

Clara rolled her eyes, hoping he was joking. "Oh come off it, there have got to be worse things than being worshipped as a Rain god."

The Doctor gave her a look. "It's a step up from what happened the last time I went there on a date. That time they tried to sacrifice me."

"And?" Clara crossed towards him, rubbing her arms and trying to get the chill out that being soaked to the bone could leave.

"And what?"

"And how did you get out of that? They seem to be a quite sacrifice happy. I really wasn't sure how you were going to convince all those people you'd 'eaten' to hush up inside that tiny room before you got the bigger on the inside thing working again." Clara replied smirking at him; today had most definitely been one of his 'good' days.

"Oh. I got lucky. Literally, lightening struck, twice."

Clara rolled her eyes. "Typical. Well at least they won't be worshipping unreliable God's that break their promises anymore, nice job on the miracle resurrection of all those sacrifices. Although I thought you could have probably done without the special sonic effects... the lights were a bit much."

The Doctor grumbled to himself, although she thought she caught the words 'everyone' and 'critic'. Relenting she slipped her arms around his waist, pressing her chest against his back as she rested her head on his shoulder, so much easier now that he was a 'proper' size as she called it. Not some overstretched bean pole in too short trousers. "You did good." She whispered, leaning up on her tip toes to press a kiss to the inside of his jaw.

"Parlour tricks, simple misdirection." He was dismissive, but she thought she sensed a hint of pride there shining through.

"Well, magic man," she teased, tugging him at the waist and forcing him to face her, dragging him out of whatever this melancholy was when he had every right to celebrate. "Lets be glad you had your beautiful assistant with you." She leant in, teasing his lips. "If you play your cards right, maybe I'll let you saw me in half later..." she frowned, "On second thoughts, not the most romantic thing I've ever said."

The Doctor chuckled. "Romantic no, the kinkiest maybe." His smirk lit up his eyes and she couldn't help but kiss him. Of course he deepened it, all but trying to balance her up on the TARDIS console.

Clara put a hand to his chest and stopped him firmly. "No! How many times do I have to tell you, it's just _rude_ to do it right here on her console. Unless you want to play another game of zero gravity swimming with her? Because she won the last time we tried that if you recall." he all but pouted, his hands sliding over her body with insistence that usually made her weak. Clara darted out of his grasp. "God you're insufferable." She muttered running away from him; usually he'd chase. It was about the only way she managed to get him where she wanted him to go when he'd got one thing on his mind these days. "This is one of the reasons she hates me you know." She called back at him laughing lightly as she darted down a corridor and lost sight of him. "Bad influence." She rounded a corridor and found him leaning casually against the door frame, head down examining his nails like he hadn't a care in the world. Right until he raised his head and seared her to the spot with those eyes of his.

Moth to a flame, she chastised herself as she let him draw her in with just a look.

The poor Old Girl, Clara mused as she felt the distinctive world weary sigh of telepathic circuits shutting off; the TARDIS doing the childish equivalent of closing her eyes and putting her hands over her ears.

* * *

The blasts whizzed over his head and the Doctor dived behind the crates he'd watched Clara scuttle behind, she rolled her eyes at him as she kept her head down dragging him down beside her.

"I thought Sontaran's were friendlier than this." She looked genuinely bemused.

"That's Strax's influence on you." The Doctor muttered. "And he's hardly friendly." Unless you were Scottish apparently the Doctor acknowledged, then he seemed to welcome you with open arms.

"And dumb as a rock." Clara replied, "Why aren't this lot, aren't they all clones, shouldn't they all be stupid?" she hissed indicating the platoon trying to get to higher ground and annihilate them.

"You are surrounded. Surrender or be slaughtered like mewling children where you cower." The leader apparently the Doctor summarised as he called a cease fire. Probably because it had stopped being fun for them to shoot a trapped target.

"Yes, well," he addressed her question first, his mind going a mile a minute on the problem at hand in the background. "That's also my fault, I might have accidentally or deliberately, I can't remember which, contaminated several clone batches. It resulted in something of an IQ dip." She gave him an incredulous look and he shrugged, it had worked out well for a while he mused, with no greater a success than Strax. Still, he doubted he'd be able to work a life debt out of all these assembled Sontaran's. "It would seem that they may have worked that particular contaminant out of successive lines. That or it's earlier in the time stream."

"Tell me you have a plan?" she was smiling... an odd sentiment that his previous self would have appreciated, even he could feel the manic excitement that near certain death always bought. He brushed her face briefly.

"Always." He replied. Which he thought sounded confident enough. He had a half of one he supposed, but then his half were generally better than most people's whole. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his sonic. "Little known fact, Sontaran's are more susceptible to memory modification than most species... Strax bought that to my attention once." He winked at her, hitting the sonic's button and setting off the silent alarms the Papal mainframe had left behind when they'd abandoned this site of worship, right before the Sontatan's set up a clone factory within it.

He reached out and pressed the palm of his hand over her eyes. "Also, strobe lighting like the type used in Papal alarms when elevated to sonic frequencies has been known to cause short term memory loss. It was actually the inspiration for the modifications they made to their confessional priests." He always had wished he could retain the memory of just what the blighters looked like.

The strobes erupted and he closed his own eyes, waiting for the tell tale hum to pass.

"What is happening? Why are we in formation?" The voice of the Sontaran Commander had the Doctor opening his eyes and peering behind the crate.

"Are we in a battle Sir?" Another identical voice.

"Can't be... there are no bodies, our enemies would litter this floor." The Commander replied. "War games, must be." He replied. "Onwards men, the war games have begun. Pair yourselves off and begin combat manoeuvres, we are overdue an inspection. Anyone found lacking will be summarily executed for the glory of Sontar!"

They trooped off, their heavy footfalls echoing on the metal floors. The Doctor waited until they had retreated, surprised to find that his hand was still covering Clara's eyes. He removed it gently, her liquid brown ones meeting his and quietly stealing his breath, like she always did. It was all altogether a new experience for him to simply never tire of something. The way she was looking at him now, the pride entirely for him and not the ghost of another man. He felt like he could and would do almost anything to keep that look firmly on him. Adoration was something he'd seen before in countless of his companions, but this was more, this meant something because she knew enough to hate him, knew enough to know so much better than to let herself love him. Knew he'd disappoint her eventually and still she stayed.

If he didn't know her mind inside and out he might have thought she was something of a masochist. Except that would have made him a sadist and he didn't like to think he could apply so simplistic a name to what time and opportunity had made him.

"And you just happened to know that you'd be able to reactivate those alarm systems?" her question drew a smirk from him. She knew him far too well.

"I do believe that if someone makes a habit out of luck it starts to be called planning." He pointed out and she pressed a kiss to his cheek, her hand lingering there.

"Can we leave now, because in case you haven't noticed, you failed to get us to Space Vegas yet again... and this," she pointed at the glorious little silken number that was torn and somewhat stained with some as yet undetermined gelatinous clone goo "is utterly ruined" she finished with distaste. Apparently the Old Girl had materialised them next to a vat of the stuff, just in time for Clara to step out into it... and they had been getting along so well.

He held his hand out to her and pulled her swiftly to her feet. "Oh come now, this was far more fun."

"You my dear Doctor are an adrenalin junky."

He snorted. "You say that like it's a bad thing my dear." He quipped letting her lead them quickly down the abandoned corridors in the opposite direction of the clone warriors.

She glanced back at him, "Would a nice trip kill you?" she muttered. "A picnic? Or shopping, I'd take haggling for some unpronounceable bit of tat, or toxic fruit over being dunked in a vat of clone goo any day." She spun away huffing, "She's getting this dry cleaned you realise. She's going to materialise an entire room full of machines specifically fit for the purpose of making this dress like new."

The Doctor smirked, seriously doubting that anything the TARDIS dry cleaned would come out in a wearable condition, not with the mood she'd been in lately. Not even if it was _his_. He tugged on her hand, twirling her back into his arms in a move that his previous uncoordinated self would have ended flat on his face, but that he executed now with precision as he dipped her. The kiss and the gesture had clearly taken her by surprise as she inhaled sharply, her hands clutching at his neck in sudden panic that he delighted in turning into pleasure. He held her his lips and the barest brush of his mind stoking a fire he knew now from wondrous experience with her, would smoulder for some time; before he righted her and took the lead from her slightly breathless form.

"I'll make it up to you." He insisted, hurrying them along, there was no telling after all how long these corridors would remain empty and he had no desire to run into more Sontaran's, he didn't even have his mallet with him this time.

"Promises, promises." She sighed, her fingers sliding up to his wrist to brush his pulse point delicately, her deceptive little touches enough to make that same pulse trip. He smiled not letting her see it but knowing she'd know it was there all the same; he'd actually have to take her somewhere quote unquote 'romantic' after this, or she'd never let him hear the end of it. He found he was actually rather looking forward to the idea of sweeping her off her feet in some grand gesture; the challenge of it though would be actually making it to the gesture before he succumbed to her insistent charms. No small feat, but then he always had been stubborn.

* * *

He finally took her to see the dancing trees of Barratil, which she had agreed was well worth the wait as they danced between the bowing branches to the sound of mother nature.

They'd gone stargazing to the sunset mountains of Hanou during the birth of the Xerxis galaxies where they'd made love beneath the night sky, not a sole within thousands of light years but them.

Not that it was all peace and quiet... it was _him_ after all, and the Old Girl seemed to get twitchy if she didn't get him into some death defying scrape at least once a week. He supposed it made him appreciate the down time more.

Today though, they were lazing with a picnic beneath the singing fountains of the Atalaan Peninsula on the ocean world home of a mostly undeveloped fish-like humanoid species. Fortunately they tended to steer clear of visitors; or the planet's surface. Clara was lying quietly on her front, a book she'd stowed away from the library in her hands as she read quietly, content in his presence as he traced idle patterns across the bare skin of her back exposed as it was in the simple haltertop she wore. And he simply listened to the music created by the fall of water against the crystal rocks; if there was a definition of peace, he imagined he had found it.

"Read to me." He asked gently, stilling his hand against her back, deciding that only the sound of her voice would improve this moment for him.

Clara turned to look over her shoulder at him. "You want me to read Harry Potter to you?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's not about the book." He replied. "I just like to hear your voice."

Clara smiled softly but knowingly. "No, you like that it shifts my attention from solely being on the book to sharing it with you."

The Doctor shrugged. "Guilty, as charged."

Clara sighed in defeat, sitting up and shooing him out of his spot so she could sit with her back against the sun warmed flat crystal rock. She patted her lap and he obliged, rolling onto his back as he stretched out and dropped his head into her lap, it had become almost a routine for them, one that he was quite happy to maintain as her fingers dropped to his scalp and brushed through them as she lifted the book in her other hand and began to read.

The hours drifted and he dozed to the sound of the water crystal music and her soft voice, feeling the tension and aches that their little outing to a world that had been infested with the Nestene had wrought on his joints.

She hadn't asked to go home, not once in the six months he determined that she'd been travelling with him from a linear perspective on board. He imagined that might be some sort of record for him, 6 months with the same one person, no distractions, just them and still he was content, intrigued even. The longer she stayed, the more a part of his home, his world she seemed to become... and the more like a Time Lord she'd started to think. He wondered if she was aware of how much less human she would seem to the outside world, she didn't seem to be aware of the changes their intimacy had carved within her. The tracks of a his mind making a new pattern in the web of her thoughts, as close to his own kind as he might ever come again and yet still somehow wonderfully human in her delights and her passions.

"Are you happy?" he opened his eyes, her voice had gone quiet and she was merely daydreaming her fingers tracing idly through his hair, but she stilled now gazing down at him.

"Of course." She replied, the question in her eyes as to why he needed to ask; her thoughts were an open book to him so much of the time and yet there was always the lingering uncertainty of what she kept behind that private wall of hers. The idea that she had 'settled' for him rankled because in his heart of hearts he knew that as a physical match his previous self and she had been far more suited.

Their familiarity had become a two way thing he realised as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't tell me you are still having doubts." She sighed, dropping her head to kiss his forehead. "For such an old arrogant soul you can be such a dolt." Her amusement and exasperation seemed to be in equal measure and he raised his hands to her face, inviting her down beside him, she obliged, sliding into his embrace and tucking her head into his neck.

"Doctor, for you it's not been all that long I understand that. You tend to work in Centuries; humans though, we don't have the luxury of that kind of time. So we're impulsive and reckless and utterly helplessly given to falling in love with people at pretty much first sight." She kissed him gently, her fingers trailing his jaw. "I'm exactly where I want to be with the man I want to be with. Anything else is just in your head and much as I can lead your mind to..." her lips curled up into a wicked and self satisfied smirk "some things." He felt the whisper of her mind do just that and he felt his lower half twitch in response to her expert tease. "Others I'm afraid are entirely in your own hands."

He considered her words as he let her divest him of his shirt, the feel of her hands tracing over his skin alighting him as only she could and he worked hard on keeping his own doubts and the maelstrom of concerns that he had tightly locked away within his mind as she entered it. But as they lay there quietly together in the afterglow, he realised just what the cause of his unease was. Despite all the tricks of her mind and memories, the changes in her thought processes that he himself had instigated. She was still only human and one day, she'd end.

But for a brief blissful period he'd let himself forget that, a master of self deception that he was, he'd even managed to bury an entire self that he'd been too ashamed to admit to. But no longer; now the thought of it tore through him afresh, his ability to cope with it diminishing with every brush of her softly beating chest against his. Fragile and so, so limited in its remaining beats. It caused that shadow of the wound he'd told her she would create in his hearts to loom ever larger.


	21. Chapter 21

The TARDIS thrummed through her feet and Clara padded down the corridor barefoot, trying not to disturb the Doctor as she hurried to the bathroom. Her mental plea was heard and the TARDIS materialised one around the next corridor. Clara all but stumbled into it, heaving her guts up and sitting down hard on the cold metallic floor. A fluffy mat materialised beneath her and she patted the floor gently, appreciating the gesture.

"This isn't possible." She whispered, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand and staring around at the four walls as if the Box would have an answer for her. "I'm just sick, space flue or something." The TARDIS thrummed a negative response through her and Clara dropped her head, glancing at her stomach which was still rumbling with nausea. "It can't be the other thing, I know it's not possible." She whispered, knowing full well that Time Lords and humans just weren't compatible, this had to be something else.

"Don't tell him about this." She pleaded with the TARDIS. "Not until I'm sure." The TARDIS made an irritated sound and Clara felt the distinct instructions to move, to be sure. Rolling her eyes Clara stood, putting one gentle foot in front of the other, not in the least bit surprised when console room all but presented itself to her around the next bend. Climbing the stairs Clara didn't need the insistent buzzing in her ear to know what the TARDIS wanted.

"You want to do this now?" she hissed, but her hands were trembling as she pulled the touch screen towards her, she was certain, it wasn't possible, she was human he wasn't, there DNA didn't match up. Which meant she was sick, the TARDIS needed to run its tests and if she was she'd just get medicine, it would be fine. "Just do it." She muttered, the words had barely left her mouth before she watched the lights blink on and the outline image of a human female appear on it. A beam of light passed over her, it scanned from head to toe.

The text flashed across the console for her benefit. 'No contaminants detected. Vitals normal.'

The scanner started up again and Clara dropped her head as it centred on her stomach, holding for a few seconds before cutting off. The words flashed on the screen and Clara felt that wave of nausea again.

'Pregnant. Positive Test.'

To say it was a shock would have been an understatement, Clara stared blinking at the words for a whole minute before she felt her brain click back on again. It wasn't possible. Even if it was she'd been careful, using birth control. Although right now the idea that human birth control might work against alien biology seemed at best a little optimistic, at worst down-right idiotic. But that didn't change the fact their species weren't compatible; knowing what she did of Time Lord biology it didn't even seem probable, but then she'd never been good at biology, not in any life.

"Can you do a DNA analysis?" Clara prompted needlessly, it wasn't like she'd had any other sexual partners, she supposed there was always some freaky space pollen that maybe she could have inhaled. The TARDIS was already feverishly working away at it before the words had even left her mouth it seemed the images displaying for her unprompted, but Clara didn't need to see the result; the way the helix wound through the display screen was all the answer she needed. And yet it shouldn't be possible, he had certainly never considered it so.

'Embryo detected. DNA analysis complete. Species Time Lord.'

The words seemed to etch themselves onto the back of her eyelids. The warning signs had been there she realised, the TARDIS had been far too careful with her recently, far too... involved. Which of course Clara supposed she should be, looking at those strands now it seemed obvious that a human-Time Lord was an impossibility, her genetic code was simply not equipped to give an unborn child everything it needed to pair with his more complex one.

The brush of telepathic information as the TARDIS explained she had done what she always did, she'd looked after _him_.

"Did you do this?" Clara asked, "Did you make this possible?" Clara managed unable to keep the shake from her voice. The TARDIS had done something like this before, it had added something of itself to make sure River survived conception inside the temporal vortex, giving her the capacity to become a Time Lady in a limited fashion. But this... this wouldn't be like that Clara felt the answer, watched as the TARDIS pulled apart the DNA strands, showing her quite clearly that whatever this was, it was most certainly her and the Doctors, not a child of the TARDIS. It just didn't make any sense, Clara felt like her head was swimming as she stared at her human DNA strand perfectly interwoven with his... human plus, but plus what and where had the plus come from in her? And how? But whatever or however, the outcome it was undeniable, this pregnancy wasn't some hybrid of the two species, the developing foetus was a Time Lord.

There was a more pressing concern however, "How am I supposed to tell him?" Clara dropped her head to the console. "If he's overprotective now what is it going to do to him to have a fragile human carrying what might be the last Time Lord ever?" The TARDIS tried to sooth her, she felt the distinctive brush of its telepathic touch. The memory of an image that Jack, as the Face of Boe, had shown her lingered and she hastily shoved it away, prophecy never had been something she'd been comfortable with, even if it might prove to be unnervingly accurate.

"Can you hide this from him, at least until I can figure out the best way?"

The console beeped in an affirmative and Clara sighed, one more thing to wall up behind that 'private' sign inside her mind, it was the only place he wouldn't pry without a damn good reason. At least until the signs became obvious, he was expertly familiar now with her body attuned to its every curve and dip, he'd notice this soon enough.

"Hide what from me?" his voice rang out; he might have been older but his hearing was bat like this regeneration round.

Clara lifted her head in surprise from where she'd dropped it to the console. The TARDIS was suspiciously quiet as the Doctor stepped onto the platform and Clara shot up, trying to hide her panic. "Nothing, just girl talk. Don't be so nosy." Clara bit back, smiling and dancing towards him, her hand going to his chest as she tried to distract him.

He caught her hand deftly his gaze narrowing as he took her in, those sharp eyes working through the puzzle with ease. His eyes flickered to the screen, it was blank and Clara tried to look merely confused rather than guilty.

"One chance." He offered, but his voice had that deceptive quiet quality it got when he was masking real anger.

Clara felt the air escape her in a rush, he knew, which meant there was no point pretending, he was offering her a way out.

"I wasn't sure. We wanted to be sure before we..."

"Neglected to tell me?" his eyebrow quirked up in what she recognised as irritation, his hand drew her in and she relented as the length of his body seemed to envelop her as his hand lowered almost instinctively to her stomach. His eyes closed and she merely waited, watching as the TARDIS flicked the screen back on again, the image of the interlocked DNA strands unequivocal. The Doctor opened his eyes onto hers. "You'd have hidden this from me?" His accusation stung and Clara looked away. Wondering how he knew and suspecting the TARDIS had something to do with it despite her promise. Or maybe she herself had just done a terrible job of keeping her mental turmoil hidden from him.

"I don't know." Clara sighed, trying to pull out of his grasp and failing. "I didn't want you to do what I know you're doing right now."

"And what am I doing?" the scorn in his voice lashed her and she steeled herself as she turned back to those eyes.

"Catastrophising." She muttered. "Right now your thinking of each and every way this could go wrong. Of every danger out there that is suddenly a looming threat over us." That image Jack had supplied loomed and she shoved it away and locked it down, not willing to let fear rule her. Something had flipped a switch within her Doctor, she couldn't pin point exactly when it had happened but he'd become over protective again almost overnight; like he'd suddenly remembered that she was in fact human. She can't say she appreciated the change or the route it might lead him down if Jack was right.

"And you're not?" he snapped, his arms going around her biceps, but his grip didn't tighten as it once would have.

"No... I'm not." She snapped. "Because I'm too damn scared to think of anything outside of me and what's happening to my body right now. In case you hadn't noticed, this most definitely shouldn't be possible. That DNA test, does not say Species, human-Time Lord. It says Time Lord." She pointed at the console with more than a little panic creeping into her voice.

The Doctor for once looked speechless. Score one for her she supposed as he released her and she turned to the console, feeling the comforting swell of the engine as it enveloped her in what she could only describe as a maternal hug.

"Clara." He approached her quietly, the irritation in his voice just about giving way to contrition.

"Don't Clara me!" she snapped "Not when I know how proper good and furious you are with me for trying to hide it at all." His hand flattened against her back and she tried not to just succumb to the insistence that she wrap herself in his arms. "I don't know if I can do this." She whispered, bowing her head and feeling the maternal glow of the TARDIS pooling over her stronger now than before.

The Doctor tutted gently at her, "You have been looking after other people's children for years. Every life you've ever lived you've been drawn to them. You'll be a wonderful mother." His words were trying to be kind, trying to comfort but he just wasn't getting it.

Clara turned over her shoulder to look at him, she couldn't help it, the moment the possibility had raised its head she'd had one thought. "But what about you Doctor? Will you be a wonderful father?"

It was a blow she knew she shouldn't have dealt, knew it the moment it left her lips, but she had to say it or it would eat her alive, and like all her secrets, he'd prise it free in the end, no doubt at the absolute worst moment. His expression waivered and she almost thought he staggered at the implication as he all but fell into the console, his knuckles white as he wrapped his hands around the edge for support.

"How dare you ask me..."

"I do dare." Clara barked back, sensing him building a head of steam and cutting him off, Jack had said that image wasn't fixed, she had to believe that, maybe if she could confront him with her fear; she could dispel it. "And don't try and pretend this is some hang up about Eleven," she added all but dismissing the idea with a sharp gesture. "I'd have been even less sure about him." That at least seemed to shut him up as she cut off his old fall back accusation of her and she turned hands on her hips to face him.

"You can't stay still for even five minutes." She accused. "You don't just have enemies you have proper _mortal_ enemies; entire planets of them, galaxies even!" his eyebrow raised and he opened his mouth to argue she raised her finger to his lips. "The TARDIS is a minefield of potential accidents for a child." He looked around and she could see him adding that to his list of things to stress over. "When were you last a father Doctor... 1400 years ago give or take?" she pressed seeing his eyes cloud with memories that on rare occasions he had let her share, not that she needed them, one of her first incarnations had been right there as his teacher, guiding his young mind. "And let's be honest, Time Lord's weren't exactly great parents, the hands off approach didn't exactly do you any favours. They barely even take responsibility for their offspring which is easier I'm sure when you don't have to carry them yourself, just hook them up to a genetic loom and let it run."

"Stop, just stop!" he barked and she perfectly understood his frustration, she knew him too well and it rankled; all these years of being the mysterious all knowing alien and now the one time he needed to pull the wool over a companions eyes and he couldn't. "Clara?" he almost pleaded and she stared up at him, a sob almost escaped her when his mouth crashed into hers. The desperation in it as he clutched her to him was palpable.

"I can do this. We can do this!" He pleaded his head against hers and she desperately wanted to believe him as he held her close, as if he could press the understanding into her.

"And then there's me." She muttered. "I'm human Doctor, no matter what fancy architecture and memories I've got crammed in here." She tapped her forehead pointlessly pulling back to look at him, knowing he was fully aware of the same biological facts she was. "This isn't possible. The TARDIS... she's done something to me." It was a sickening thought but one she couldn't shake.

"Clara, the TARDIS would never do anything without your permission or mine." He whispered using that quiet tone again, he approached and she didn't protest when he took her face in his palms angling it up to his. "This... this is not something I was expecting either." He admitted, but as far as she could tell beside the mild shock, he was excited by the prospect.

"We should have." Clara muttered, "The TARDIS made it happen with two humans in the time-vortex, what did you think she'd do with us?" Particularly when they'd given her so many times to get it right Clara mused.

The Doctor gave the TARDIS matrix an unfathomable look that Clara didn't want to interpret because she really didn't think it was annoyance, before he turned his attention back to her. "Can my body take this and if so why?" Clara asked him gently, knowing that he was more rattled than she was and a scared Doctor was always a dangerous one.

The Doctor pressed a kiss to the top of her head before releasing her and turning back to the console, "Your right it shouldn't be possible at all." He muttered, perfectly echoing her early thoughts as he pulled the view screen towards him and examined it quietly; his expression darkened and she felt her blood run cold. "Ah. I see." The way he said it wasn't encouraging, and the look he gave her she knew she wouldn't forget in a hurry, whatever he was about to say, he thought it might be the end them.

"The TARDIS has been spiking your food." He said it so calmly that she almost didn't take it in.

"What?" she hissed, stalking up to the console and slamming her hands down on it, demanding the machine explain itself... if it even could.

"Well this might be the first we're hearing about it, but I'd say the Old Girl has been planning this for a while." The Doctor spun the viewer back to her and Clara eyeballed it, the scrawling numbers didn't mean a lot to her. "This isn't like River," he whispered, clearing that up right away as he gave her a pained look, "River's parents were human, they needed the TARDIS to directly intervene after the instability of the time vortex impacted on the developing foetus and Kovarian's sect worked very hard afterwards with their genetic manipulations to make sure River was all that she could be."

"Just tell me." Clara bit out. "What has she been giving me?" Clara stepped closer to him her stomach knotting and threatening nausea again.

"Huon particles." He explained, his fists clenching as he dropped his head for a moment, staring at their linked hands as if memorising it.

Clara reached out and grasped his arm, fearing he might be about to tear into his old friend. "Why would she poison me?" She knew enough to know that they were bad news... toxic, even the Time Lord's limited their use to the heart of the TARDIS despite their energy potential. They had nearly destroyed Donna when the Ragnaros had made her an unwitting host.

The Doctor snorted. "Oh the Old Girls not poisoning you, not in the traditional sense. She's 'fixing' you, combining it with her own residual Artron energy." The derision in his voice made Clara think he thought about as much of that as she did.

Clara realised when he didn't elaborate that he'd assumed she'd understood the implications of that; she didn't. "What does that mean, in English Doctor?" She snapped, properly nervous now.

"She's been making you compatible with me... biologically." His voice was flat, like he was terrified of letting emotion bleed into it because he wasn't sure which one would present itself.

Clara understood that just fine. The Old Cow was making her more Time Lord, which meant she had probably conceived naturally; no need for the TARDIS to have intervened with the foetus at all. A Time Lord was created by exposure to the temporal vortex, thrived on it, it would be fine. But did she feel different? She'd been making love to a time travelling alien with the ability to quite literally blow her mind... she wasn't sure she'd remember what it felt like to be the Clara that had opened the door to a mad monk anymore. "How far along has she gotten? Given the current predicament I'm assuming it's pretty far right?" her Doctor, he looked so torn. She wanted to offer him some comfort, tell him that she wasn't breaking apart right now; but it was impossible for her to lie to him right now, because she wasn't ok with this. Pregnant was one thing. This... well it was something else.

The Doctor turned the monitor back towards him, the eerie calm of him throwing all of her senses into overdrive, primed and waiting for the explosion she knew was imminent. "I assume that she began sometime after the Reapers at a guess." He replied. "She has been blocking the sensors inside." he flipped a few more buttons staring hard at the monitors and pulling out his sonic with a dark look. "And she's encoded a patch that has made it undetectable to our sonic's," he turned to give her a pleading look. "I didn't know, I swear if I had..."

Clara reached for his hand squeezing it tightly, recognising his rambling for avoidance. "I know. Just tell me, how bad?"

The Doctor blinked, glancing back at his monitors as if he needed to check, his face looked ashen. "Biological conversion is at 47%." He whispered and Clara stared at him in disbelief.

"How?" she exclaimed, grabbing the scanner herself and checking, 47% Time Lord." Clara dropped the scanner and backed away from both him and his damn Box. That meant there was only 53% human left, a few more weeks, maybe even days and it would have tipped over into half.

Only half human.

Her stomach gurgled unpleasantly and she felt a wave of nausea again, had she even noticed? Or worse, had he?

"Nanogenes." The Doctor muttered, "She must have retrofitted the ones the Sisters used to repair your neuronal damage, they should have left your system harmlessly when they completed their task by now, but I'm detecting them, or rather she's letting me detect them." He tossed the scanner aside, grasping the console and glaring furiously at it, but Clara knew he was torn between the feelings of betrayal and the idea that the TARDIS might have fixed a problem for him without him needing to take on a shred of guilt for it. Clara prided herself on being able to keep up with him on occasion, but she loathed where her mind led her now. The Doctor drew his fingers across his brow and Clara felt the bristling of his telepathic walls snapping into place, his comforting presence retreating almost entirely into his shell.

"Doctor, don't." She ran her hand over his as he gripped onto the console tightly. "It's ok, I know what you're thinking, what that thought is doing to you, even if you're trying to hide it."

"I can't help it." He admitted looking utterly broken at the admission and she opened her arms to him, letting him hold her as she placed her head against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his tripping hearts.

"You're happy about it, all of it." She acknowledged and she heard the sob he couldn't hold back. It was hardly a surprise, the man had been alone for a millennia, not a single one of his species left alive. It must have been soul destroying. Even the idea of having that back, particularly if you could do that _and_ keep the fragile human woman you'd come to love at the same time; well she could hardly blame him. The TARDIS on the other hand...

"Forgive me." He pleaded swapping their positions as he slid to his knees, pressing his head to her stomach and holding her tightly to him. Clara let her hand rise to stroke through his hair offering him a comfort that wasn't as forthcoming to her.

"There's nothing to forgive." She breathed and there wasn't, not of him, he couldn't help that even a machine would love him enough to do something like this, but the machine itself? "I can't promise the same for the Old Cow though." Clara muttered and he tightened his arms reflexively around her. "If I get the chance I'm going to turn her into scrap. Because she had no right!" Clara snarled, staring up at the walls. "I've had more than enough Time Lord crap to deal with in my head without my body going into revolt against me as well."

"She was just doing what she thought was best." The Doctor admitted and Clara resisted the urge to shove him away from her, was it too much to bloody ask for him to take her side, just once against the damn box! But he looked so retched, truly now torn between them.

"She was doing what she thought was best for _you_... always you! And I can't even get damn well mad with her about that because I was the idiot that programmed that into her damn software in the first place." She hadn't meant for that to slip out but she supposed now was as good a time as any for it.

The Doctor lifted his head slowly meeting her eyes the surprise in his evident. Clara rolled her eyes relieved to finally let that little secret out, it had certainly explained a thing or two when she'd found it in that top draw of one her filed lives memories.

"One of your Time Lady Echo's?" he connected the dots.

Clara rolled her eyes, feeling a hint of irritation creeping in. "Oh please, don't tell me you didn't notice that the TARDIS was more than a little bit possessive of you?" he frowned, clearly wondering what the connection was. "Of course I didn't know I was technically programming her for _you_, I was just playing about. She was a museum peace. I wanted to see if I could heighten the sentience, make a more... sympathetic machine." Clara stepped away from both of them and he slowly got to his feet. "I gave her the ability to feel _something_, but it was you she formed the attachment to. Which makes this whole damn thing in a roundabout sort of way my own bloody fault."

Clara couldn't help it, she kicked the centre console hard, hurting her foot more than she hurt the machine, but it beeped and rose angrily back at her anyway. "Oh bite me, you meddling machine." Clara snapped at it. "I should have followed my orders and had you recycled for parts, you owe me."

Clara turned her back on them both, not sure what to say or feel; coming to that little revelation about her past self and the Box had been a surprise she'd been holding on to as she hadn't really been sure what it meant, after all if the Doctor hadn't insisted on storing all her Galiffreyan lives so close to the surface she'd never have remembered. Although she was quite certain half the TARDIS's initial animosity originated from that little mishap they'd had with her Navigation system when Clara, or rather her Echo, had accidentally fallen asleep with the temporal welders still active. Possibly it was why the Box had been so against her getting a good night's sleep; the machine could certainly hold a grudge Clara noted.

The Doctor slid closer until he was in her eye-line. "Have you ever considered that maybe this is her trying to pay you back the favour?" That was exactly the problem she realised, they both thought of this as a 'gift' like the idea that the loss of her humanity could be anything other than a tragedy, hadn't even occurred to them.

Clara ran her hands through her hair, a nervous gesture she seemed to have picked up from him. "She stole my humanity and she didn't even stop to think if she should. Like right now, the only thought probably going through that warped metal skull of hers, is 'ungrateful stray'!" Clara kicked the centre panel again. "You Cow." She snarled, properly mad now.

"Clara, calm down." The Doctor tried, his hands going to her shoulders.

"Make her stop. Right now." She insisted turning this over to him. "47% less than human is all she's getting." The Doctor didn't say anything, didn't protest, just leant into the console and started pushing buttons. Clara watched his rigid posture, the pain masked in every movement and she reached out placing a hand over one of his and stilling its movement against the mechanism. "Is 47% enough to get this baby all the way through?" Ok so she hadn't meant to call it a baby, but her mouth had other ideas; and she had to know, a baby after all was innocent in this, it hadn't asked to suddenly pop into creation because a sentient Blue Box was screwing with its mother's DNA. But what would it need? How much more of herself of her humanity was she willing to give to see it born?

The Doctor didn't look at her, which meant she knew he was going to try and lie, not something he did especially well these days. Her hand squeezed his. "Give me a number." The Doctor gave her a sideways glance, she realised his hands were trembling beneath hers as he fought to hold onto his emotions, his opinions on this a topic so desperately close to his heart.

"I don't know." He admitted, pulling away, retreating to the other side of the console.

Clara sighed, everything the hard way. "Activate TARDIS voice interface." A hologram flickered into life... Eleven's face, clearly she the Old Cow thought she was being cute. Clara glared at the apparition, turning her back on it and looking straight at the console. "Nice face. It's not going to work though." Clara muttered. "Give me a number. I know you've been calculating, so tell me, just how much more humanity am I going to have to give up for this to stand a chance of working."

"None." It wasn't Eleven's voice, Clara glanced back to find a woman was stood there, a woman in a tattered mismatched Victorian outfit and mad hair.

"Idris." The Doctor whispered and then he hastily looked away, his hands flat on the TARDIS console. Her heart would have gone out to him as he was quite literally torn between the two women in his life, but she was too pissed off or possibly just in shock right now to give it more thought.

"None?" Clara snapped, her mind trying to process what she meant by that answer, hoping she'd interpreted correctly that 47% was indeed enough.

The woman that Clara realised was probably the closest thing the TARDIS had to a face cocked her head at her, as if observing. "Viable conception was successfully achieved after 21% conversion, the developing foetus at this point had everything it needed to reach a natural gestation term." Clara held her breath, feeling the Doctor radiating tension beside her.

"Then why am I at 47%?" Clara whispered, knowing with an odd certainty what she had suspected all along.

The TARDIS in this Idris form smiled at her with what seemed like most definite fondness despite her words. "My calculations indicate that a 53% conversion is required to ensure sufficient retention of Artron energy for you to sustain a successful regeneration cycle."

"Regeneration cycle?" the Doctor all but rasped but Clara was reeling.

Idris, or the TARDIS, whatever the apparition was, nodded that fond smile turning on the Doctor. "Yes, limited though the cycle would be; my calculations are accurate. A further 5% biological conversion is required to ensure a species designation of Time Lord for Clara Oswald." They seemed to share a moment, the mad man and his Box... and Clara had a dawning realisation that she was currently just being used as an instrument for the TARDIS to demonstrate its unending devotion to him.

Clara blinked taking a moment to digest what that meant and not liking the answer, needing to vocalise it, to scream it into the air. "You didn't do this for the baby at all, that was what? Just a bonus, a coincidence, the more you changed me the more possible it became for me to get pregnant?" The Doctor was suspiciously quiet and she glanced at him, he was staring his eyes wide and fixed on the TARDIS. "You did this entirely for him." Clara nodded, furious and devastated and utterly lost all at the same time. "What to get the man who has everything, all of time and space, everything that ever was or will be? How about a Companion he doesn't have too lose."

"Yes." The TARDIS replied succinctly although Clara wasn't sure which bit she was responding to, the voice interface flickering. "Then you understand?"

Clara felt her lips purse. "Yes I understand." She sighed, wishing she didn't. "But I don't forgive." She pointed her finger at the voice interface. "This was wrong, to do it like this, without giving me a choice. You were wrong!" Clara shouted, feeling satisfaction in the way the sound bounced off the metal walls.

Idris blinked slowly, the face the TARDIS had picked turning up its mouth at the corners into a dark smile. "Impossible, I have seen it work." Then she vanished, just blinked out of existence and left her staring and silently fuming in the silence. For this conversion, the length it had gone to, for it to have been for the sake of a baby she could have possibly understood it, forgiven this betrayal; but she wasn't quite so sure the same applied when it had been solely to prevent its father from being alone.

"I need to get out of here." Clara managed quietly. "Put us down somewhere." Clara approached the door, not bothering to check that he'd do as she asked, the mood she was in had him flipping buttons and landing them on the nearest habitable spot he could find. She wrenched open the doors and strode out, not caring where she was, so long as it wasn't inside his damn Box.


	22. Chapter 22

**CHAPTER TWENTY TWO**

The Doctor had taken her home. She stepped out onto the familiar little green verge and tried not to cry with relief. He'd never bought... no never _let_ her go home before. Maybe he thought she'd forgotten that he'd for all intensive purposes kidnapped her from the beginning of this new face. Refusing to let her return to her life, her family, her job.

Clara stood unmoving outside of the Box, staring at the typical human flat. Her life.

It took her a while to make it up the endless stairs, her legs were heavy and the nausea was formidable. She didn't have a key. It took her a moment to remember to pull out her sonic and point it at the door; it clicked open.

When she stepped inside it became immediately apparent to her that something wasn't quite right. There was mail piled up in front of the door. More of it was piled neatly, organised into groups on her hallway table. Clara frowned, shutting the door and stepping into the flat, it smelt... stale. Uneasy now she crossed to the phone, the messages were blinking. Inside it became more obvious that someone other than her had been cleaning up, taking care of the place. There was a picture of her pride of place on the dining room table, it was the one her dad had always kept at his.

"Oh God no." Clara felt a sob rising as a hollow feeling expanded within her, like she was looming over a pit, ready to tumble inside, her heart beat tripped waiting... She grabbed a remote control flicking on the television and hitting the teletext function. The date flickered there. Clara turned it off and sat down heavily in the armchair.

Two years.

She was two years too late. She'd have been missing two years.

Her family, God what had they thought? She'd run out on them on Christmas day... never to return. She was probably lucky there was still a flat here at all, god knows what her dad had done to keep up with the rent.

The door swung open and Clara didn't bother to get up she could tell it was him just from the footfalls, even before she felt the familiar sweep of his mind brushing against hers.

"Two years." Clara muttered. "If I didn't hate her before, I do right now." Now she'd crossed into this time-stream she couldn't go back, couldn't undo it. Not without a lot of help and luck from the same god damn Box who'd clearly put her here for a reason. She should have raged, sobbed, something. Instead she just felt numb, the weight of this on top of everything else simply not processing.

The Doctor came to stand behind the chair, his hands brushing over the fabric, she knew he'd rather have touched her, but he wouldn't not until she gave some indication she wanted him to.

"Go on. I know you have some justification for it." Clara sighed, sinking back into the chair and trying not to simply cry. He wisely said nothing, so she said it for him. "She's trying to make it easier for me right. Show me that this life here means nothing... that it will just move on without me. That it's what, pointless, a pointless human existence that I don't need anymore?"

He was making a show of taking in the room, which was ridiculous, he'd already clocked everything in the entire flat and its ramifications on his first few steps inside. Which meant he was avoiding her, which never bode well.

"I'm assuming it was _her_... not you?" the dark thought fell heavy between them.

His non answer spoke volumes and she dropped her head. "Please no." She wanted to curl up somewhere and just have it all stop, everything was spinning and that numbness was creeping over her, dulling everything. Shock most likely she realised. It was all just too much.

The Doctor continued seemingly unaware of the damage he'd inflicted, or perhaps he didn't care, she honestly didn't know. Was this his shock response too? "You were right. She'd stolen your choice. And you _do_ deserve to make one." He approached her trying to draw her eyeline as he crouched down in front of the sofa his finger going to her chin to raise her head, and she instinctively flinched away. "But Clara I need this to be an _informed_ decision from you."

"Informed how?" she asked dropping her head not able to look at him right now, still not sure what the thought of him being the cause of this particular nightmare was doing to her.

He sighed and she watched as his feet paced lightly, nervously. "I want you to understand what that last 5% of your humanity means. What its loss will cost you." His feet stopped facing her. "Because right now you could still go back Clara. We could reverse it, some of it at least at any rate. Lower that percentage and you would still be able carry..." he paused, the word as painful to him now she imagined as it had been to her when she'd first uttered it, "still carry the baby to term." He managed giving her a look that she could feel despite keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the carpet. Apparently he was aware after all and this was his attempt at fixing it, of giving her something to choose, showing her in stark reality what a Time Lords life would be. Of what a human life looked like in comparison. _Fleeting_ apparently. Easily thrown into chaos.

Their eyes met as she tried to absorb what he was trying to show her, a glimpse of the future, her future on Earth if she chose this other life, with him. That it really was one or the other, no half way house. But his words, he was still trying to convince her she could go back. "If we did that, reversed some of it, then you could live a single lifespan; granted it will most likely be a long one, two hundred years at the very least. But doable. You could adapt." He paused. "If this was still the life you wanted, that is." It was a credit to him she supposed that he didn't allow what he thought of this particular life, this other choice sound in some way lesser, if that was indeed what he thought at all, she honestly didn't know.

"And the other choice?" she asked, hating that her voice sounded so thin and hollow, void of emotion because there were simply too many competing ones. "A full reversal? I know you, you could find a way, and I'm betting this isn't permanent until I take that extra 5% step right?"

The Doctor sighed, dropping his eyes this time. "Clara," he admitted and she felt something else shatter inside of her. "There is no full reversal, the damage the Huon particles will have done over such a prolonged period alone would have been tricky, but when combined with the Artron energy... I'm sorry, but there simply isn't enough of the old you left undamaged. At most we could perhaps reverse it to 15% give or take, maybe a few percent more if I pushed it, but the results would likely be unstable."

Clara stared at his face, watching the lines deepen. "And that would terminate the pregnancy I'm guessing too."

He didn't even twitch and she realised then just how careful he was being with her, just how much her choosing the alternative might mean for him... for them. "It's your choice Clara. I promise you that, perhaps it's not the choice you should have been given but it is yours now."

She knew what he was saying, what in a strange way this 'gesture' of his was. Clarity. Absolute. And a part of her admired him for having the strength to offer it despite what he might lose. But her anger was faster, quicker on the draw than her ability to acknowledge his attempts at a gesture. "You think I'll pick you." She declared more out of spite than any real belief that he thought that. But right now she wanted to cut him with words, the way stepping into this flat had cut her. "You think I'll pick a life with you on board that Old Cow. Danger at every corner." She lifted her head, knowing that tears were spilling down her cheeks and ruining her righteous indignation as she glared back at his strained but largely impassive face. "Why because it's just so amazing out there, more than anything Earth has to offer, or that my actual family will pale in comparison to you?" his facade broke a little, she saw the pain she was causing, the hurt, the way his hands twitched to hold her, but he needed to understand what an arrogant ass he could be sometimes.

The Doctor drew himself up tall and pinned her with that inscrutable gaze of his. "As I said, _this _decision is yours." He emphasises the 'this' she noted. The maddening thing was she couldn't even think what her decision would have been if she'd been given the first one. If he or his blasted Blue Box had of asked her, told her there was a way of making her a Time Lord. That she could be with him for so much longer, become something... she wasn't going to say _more_, but different. She knew the implications, could have made a rational decision about it. But what would it have been? What had she expected when she started a relationship with him? Had she hoped for this much, or always simply expected to be left behind one day to go back to a normal human life. Changed for the better she hoped through her experiences, but back. Like Mickey and Martha. Of course there was the alternative... the very high probability he'd have watched her die or become lost to him, there were other ways to lose the life she'd had like the Ponds, like Rose. Maybe that was the point, maybe she hadn't really expected to get out of this alive and unscathed after all, maybe she'd known there was no 'back'.

Had she been ok with that? She'd died for him before... so many times, her defining act had been to choose him forever, damn the consequences. Now he was asking her to consider the prospected of living for him... and _with _him.

"If you had asked..." she whispered, letting him in on her train of thought, letting him see the agony of the notion. "Asked me to chose this, chose you? To give up my humanity for you?" She elaborated seeing tears redden his eyes, "I'd have said yes." She admitted.

"If _**I had **_asked." He acknowledged from his stoic position across the room from her, the bitterness creeping in and she finally heard the anger there and she realised that he finally understood what his damn Box had done to them both; what she might have stolen from him too.

"But you'd never have asked." Clara saw his eyes widen a fraction so the faint flicker of surprise give way to heartbreak. He didn't need to answer, they both knew it was the truth. He'd never have asked so much of her, not for him. And he'd never have taken the risk that she wouldn't survive the process, because she assumed there had been risk involved. Besides, he was inherently commitment shy, he liked change and transient companions, the idea of one probably terrified him in the long run. The TARDIS had chosen for them because he'd have never asked and she'd have never considered asking him to.

"And now?" he wondered aloud, no trace of hope in his voice which broke through her numbness.

"Now I don't know. The choice isn't as simple now. There are other things to consider." She didn't brush her stomach or look at it in anyway, but she felt his eyes flicker to it before he looked away sharply. She almost dared him to claim some involvement, some decision over it... but he didn't and wouldn't she realised. Here he was the last of his species and he'd knowingly let her destroy any chance of changing that. He really had changed.

"You should know, I have made contact with your father." Clara blinked startled back to reality, his words filtering in and something must have registered on her otherwise numbed exterior because he moved away from the chair; probably because he feared she might do him harm if he came closer.

"You spoke to him?" Clara turned to see his face and felt her will crumble with the utter devastating notion of it, if he had spoken to her father he'd made this whole situation real, sealed this two year adrift time-line in place and drawn her father into this mess. "I don't understand," and she genuinely didn't, "I thought you said this was my choice, my decision to make?"

"It is." He bit out. "This is the informed bit." He replied smoothly. "An empty apartment, a void is one thing. But facing family, of seeing them change, or not..."

Clara swallowed tasting bile and thankful she didn't seem to have anything left to throw up. "How can a man who is supposed to be in love with me so casually decide to destroy the only connection I have left to that humanity?" She stared at him, waiting, "Why would you do this?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that too." Her father's voice carried and she shot out of her seat, spinning around to see him her eyes wide with surprise.

The Doctor crossed his arms defensively, "I collected him myself; it seemed the most expedient."


End file.
